A Question Of Reliability

Over the last decade, drug testing has become a common and some say necessary intrusion into our lives. It's used in our legal system, schools, and workplaces. It can be a factor in getting a job or losing one. Analysis of a snippet of hair is replacing the urine sample as the easiest way to test for drug use. But a three-month investigation by CBS This Morning Correspondent Roberta Baskin uncovers serious questions about the reliability of hair testing. The second of her three-part report follows.

Wayne Hovoland, commanding officer of the department's random drug testing program, says, "We feel we have raised the bar, so...we've made it that much more difficult for someone who has a history of drug use to become a Chicago police officer."

Hovoland says a test using a hair sample can detect if a person has used drugs in the previous 90 days. He says this newer method is much more effective than the urine test. "We did a hair and urine test side by side and we found that we were getting three times as many positives with the hair test as with the urine test," he says.

In the last year alone, 200 applicants to the police force were turned away based on those hair tests. "It is an extremely useful tool," Hovoland says. "It's helped us eliminate people from consideration otherwise who may have been hired."

However, some distinguished scientists argue that hair tests are far from foolproof. One of them is Dr. Douglas Rollins, who heads up the Center for Human Toxicology at the University of Utah.

Dr. Rollins injected equal amounts of drugs into rats with black hair and rats with white hair. The tests produced dramatically different results.

"It would appear that hair color can make up to a 50-fold difference in the amount of drug that's found, when one looks at light-colored hair versus very black colored hair," Dr. Rollins says.

Now, Dr. Rollins is conducting similar tests on human hair. He suspects that black hair retains more traces of drugs and that, therefore, the test is in effect biased against people with black hair.

"There is a possibility that a person with black hair would be accused whereas a person with blond hair would not be accused of drug use," says Rollins, "and as long as that possibility is out there, then I don't think the test should be used."

There are other unresolved questions. Are hair tests thrown off by environmental contamination such as secondhand smoke? One federal study found 80 percent of our money supply may be contaminated with cocaine. Another study found that children of cocaine users can test positive just from being around users of the drug.

In the absence of any federal standards for hair tsting labs, each lab develops its own rules. That can lead to inconsistent results, and it is one of the reasons no federal agency yet accepts hair tests.

But the Chicago police force does. Althea Jones, a criminal justice major at Chicago State University and an intern at Gateway Drug Rehabilitation Center in Chicago, scored high marks on her Chicago Police Department application test. But the drug test on her hair came back positive.

She says that astonished her: "I looked down and there is big bold letters saying 'COCAINE' and I couldn't believe it. To say I am a drug user. I've never done drugs in my life."

She continues, "I immediately ran to the doctor you know and told him everything and he took a urine test. Negative."

The police academy gave her no recourse. "It was just, 'we received your letter, that's the end of it'," she says.

Althea has met other applicants who felt they were wrongly accused.

Glenn Carter is a son of a police officer, and hoped to follow him onto the force. "I never had any doubt I'm going to be passing the written portion of the test and I was 100 percent sure I was going to pass the drug test," he says.

David Logan is a pastor on Chicago's West Side. He kicked his own drug habit ten years ago and thought joining the police force would help him counsel others.

"A police officer has a great opportunity to minister to young children who come from dysfunctional homes, and one who's been there maybe has a little more ammunition than one who hasn't," he says.

David failed his drug test too. He says, "I'm all for drug testing 100 percent. Let's get a test that's not biased."

Brenda Coleman is a railroad worker who also wanted to join the force. She says, "I'd wake up just thinking about the image of that letter, you know, just with the letter and my name underneath, 'Brenda Coleman,' and somebody saying that I am a drug user."

All four applicants got high scores on their written tests. But all four also tested positive for cocaine on their hair test.

Have they ever used cocaine?

Glenn Carter: "Never in my life done cocaine. Never done cocaine, marijuana, heroin or any other type of drug you can name. I never wanted to do it."

David Logan: "I haven't had a drug or a drink in ten years."

Brenda Coleman: "I have not - never. Never cocaine, marijuana, pill popper or heroin. Anything."

When the Chicago Police Department wouldn't take them at their word, there wasn't much these four hopefuls could do about it.

Glenn Carter says he's been frustrated in his attempt to set the record straight. "I talked to three or four lawyers, and each lawyer was like 'well, I don't know if you did drugs or not. But there's no route you can pursue to overturn this.' And I am like, they're lying on me. So there should be an avenue I can pursue."

Lew Maltby, who handles workplace issues for the American Civi Liberties Union, says hair testing has been riddled with problems for ten years. "There are no laws regulating hair testing," he says. "We've had a number of people who have come to us over the years who are not drug abusers. They got fired because they failed a hair test. And with investigating what happened to these people, we've learned more and more about just how inaccurate and how unreliable hair testing really is."

With the help of the ACLU and a civil rights attorney, Althea, Brenda, David and Glenn have lodged a formal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They have not given up their hope of joining Chicago's police force.

By Roberta Baskin
©1999 CBS Worldwide Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed