DATE: Wednesday, April 16, 1997             TAG: 9704160467

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   93 lines

MOBILE DRUG, ALCOHOL TESTING IS GETTING POSITIVE RESULTS

John Languell once showed up at a large construction site, and 20 to 30 workers walked off the job.

He wasn't surprised.

Languell had driven up in what he calls the ``DATmobile,'' an RV that offers about 50 Hampton Roads companies on-site drug and alcohol testing.

Of those workers who stayed, another 20 tested positive for drugs or alcohol. That's a significant number for companies that have drug and alcohol testing programs, but this company didn't.

If it had, Languell said, word of mouth probably would have prevented many workers with drug or drinking problems from showing up in the first place.

Many of the clients that Languell & Associates serve now are required to have such programs for safety reasons. Others aren't required to have programs, but have found that it pays to do so.

Based in Portsmouth, Languell's family-run substance-abuse management firm offers everything from supervisor training to help in writing workplace policies regarding drugs and alcohol.

Their clients range from cab companies and tugboat operations to trucking firms. Most fall under regulations set by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

In fact, the substance-abuse management industry has mushroomed since the Drug-Free Workplace Act was passed in 1988, Languell said. The law did not spell out drug-testing but required that businesses receiving government contracts make a ``good faith effort'' to have a drug-free workplace.

Within a year, the Department of Transportation and other federal agencies were requiring random drug-testing.

Back then, Sarah Languell was a minority owner of an occupational health center, which conducted drug testing along with other services. Her husband was just retiring from the Navy, where he had worked in human resources and had been involved in monitoring drug testing for a carrier group.

When the health center was sold to another group, the Languells decided to take the expertise they had in drug testing and put it into their own mobile business.

``The company that's having the drug testing done, they don't mind paying for the drug test, but it costs them a fortune to take the time off to send the guy somewhere,'' Sarah Languell said. ``It's a big savings for them for us to come on site, and they're down 10 or 15 minutes.''

The mobile testing also allows employees little time to tamper with the test.

The Languells have seen all kinds of tricks.

``It's been reported that there are 150 sites on the Internet on how to pass a drug test,'' Sarah Languell said.

Health food items, Clorox, vinegar and clear water from the toilet are some of the ways people have tried to foil a positive reading. The Languells put blue liquid in the toilet to prevent the latter method.

Some people keep a clean specimen in their locker or lunch box in case they are pulled for a drug test. So one way a site collector checks for problems is to make sure the temperature of the specimen is between 90 and 100 degrees.

As a countermeasure, someone may use a microwave oven or butane handwarmer to warm the specimen, but the Languells are onto that one, too.

``On the van, a recent specimen was so hot to the touch that even after five minutes of waiting, the temperature still hadn't come down to the 100 degrees maximum,'' Languell said.

One of the strangest cases they've run into over the years, though, was that of a husband and wife.

``The wife had to go to the bathroom just prior to the husband being tested,'' he said. ``Apparently, she was the one who brought in the (negative) sample in Tupperware.''

But because suspicions had been raised, a medical technologist went into the bathroom and found the Tupperware bowl that had been left inside the toilet tank. The technologist added dye to the sample, sealed it and put it back in the toilet tank.

When the husband went in for the test, he was gone a long time. He then came out without providing a specimen, Languell said. The couple walked out, the wife ``yelling something about her Tupperware bowl.''

Collectors cannot ask for a second specimen unless they've actually seen an adulteration they can document. Then they have the right to do a direct observation.

``The recreational user, if he knows you have a program and it's visible - and the truck makes it very visible - he will often make the decision that he prefers his job over the recreational use,'' Sarah Lenguell said. ``The hard-core user is just going to wait until he gets caught.''

But the deterrent of drug testing has made a difference in the workplace, the Languells say.

They say they see about a 3 percent to 4 percent positive rate across the board. When they first started doing drug testing, the positive rate was about 20 percent. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

JIMMY WALKER

The Virginian-Pilot

John Languell of Languell & Associates, a family-run substance-abuse

management firm, displays alcohol testing equipment found in the

"DATmobile." KEYWORDS: DRUG TESTING SUBSTANCE ABUSE

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