Here Come the Specimen Jars

For 90,000 railroad employees in the U.S., a day at work may now include a surprise: being selected for a random drug test. Last week the workers joined more than 650,000 other private-sector employees who during the past month have become subject to new Department of Transportation rules requiring random tests. While many transport workers are already screened before hiring and after accidents, the department hopes its expanded rules will provide an even higher level of deterrence.

The new regulations are part of a growing push for drug detection in government and industry. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission now demands drug testing of power-plant operators and construction workers, while the Pentagon is drafting regulations to test employees of defense contractors. To help private industry set up its own programs, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch and Oklahoma Democrat David Boren have proposed a Senate bill that would protect employees from abuses and employers from lawsuits by establishing minimum federal standards for workplace testing. Said former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who supports the bill: "When the privacy rights of an individual threaten the health and the safety of others, then those rights end."

Despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision last March that affirmed the testing of railroad and Customs workers under certain conditions, drug screening faces heated challenges. Last week a federal appeals court halted all testing for 195,500 mass-transit workers. An injunction also prevents the DOT from requiring random or postaccident tests for 3 million truck and bus drivers.

The campaign to uncover drug usage among workers has been fueled in part by a series of drug-related accidents. In one of the worst, a 1987 collision of Conrail and Amtrak trains that killed 16, investigators determined that a Conrail engineer and conductor had been smoking marijuana just before the accident. So far, testing has support from an important group: the workers. In a Gallup poll released last month, a majority of adults said they favored random testing.