Federal Drug Advisory Board Issues Recommendations for Driver Drug Screening

A federal drug advisory board recently issued a recommendation to their director that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) institute nationwide hair-testing protocols for truck driver drug screenings. While some organizations already leverage this technology, federal regulations currently identify urine analysis as the only authoritative testing methodology for drug screening.

These standards date back to the 1991 Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act, the first step taken in national testing regulations for transportation professionals. In the quarter-century since, science and technology have moved forward. Hair testing now provides a greater degree of accuracy and significantly longer window of testing history to get a better picture of usage. The results of over 1200 peer-reviewed papers were considered in the process of arriving at the advisory board’s recommendation.

The board has received hundreds of comments in the past few months, overwhelmingly in support of hair tests for drug screening. Expect to hear from HHS and the Department of Transportation in the coming months on these and related drug screening issues.

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