4 FOGHORN Testing for Impairment. An Update on Oral Fluid Tests. M arijuana prohibition is ending. In April, the Justice Department moved FDA-approved marijuana products and state-licensed medical marijuana into Schedule III of the Controlled Substanc- es Act. As I write this, the DEA is holding an expedited hearing—June 29 through July 15—on rescheduling marijuana entirely. Forty states license medical marijuana. Recreational use is already legal in the majority of states where PVA members operate, including the entire West Coast, most of the Northeast, and several Great Lakes states. What has not changed are our drug testing obligations. In May, the Department of Trans- portation (DOT) con- firmed in writing that using a state-licensed marijuana product is not a legitimate medical ex- planation for a positive DOT drug test. Rescheduling does not affect the mandatory testing our mariners face under 46 CFR Part 16 and the DOT protocols in 49 CFR Part 40. Nor should it. An impaired captain or deckhand is a danger to every passenger aboard, and our members carry millions of them each year. Our interest is simple. We need to know our crewmembers are sober when they report for watch. Whether they legally used a legal product on their own time three weeks ago is not our business. That is the exact standard we already apply to alcohol. Urinalysis detects marijuana metabolites for weeks, some- times as long as eight weeks after use. It measures history, not impairment. In PVA markets where recreational use is legal, that gap is now a hiring problem. Operators are turn- ing away qualified candidates. Good prospects look at an industry that penalizes lawful off-duty conduct and walk away. This is happening while the maritime workforce shortage is at its worst. There is a better tool; it has been sitting on the shelf for three years. Oral fluid testing is the closest thing to an impairment test that exists. It detects use within the past day, not the past two months. Collections are directly observed, so the privacy problems of restroom collections dis- appear and cheating gets much harder. You can run one anywhere: aboard the vessel, dockside, in the field. HHS authorized it in 2019. DOT authorized it in June 2023. Three years later, not one PVA member can use it, because not a single U.S. laboratory has been certified to process oral fluid specimens. One lab has even sought certification. It is in Canada. Think about what that means on a working vessel. Urine collection requires a private restroom and a same-gender collector. Try arranging that at a remote dock at 0600, or aboard a small vessel with one head and a crew of three. Oral fluid collection needs a swab and a witness. It costs less than urinalysis. It takes less time out of the operating day. For a small operator running post-incident or rea- sonable cause testing, that difference is real money and real crew hours. ANDREW SARGIS // PRESIDENT AT THE HELM LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Continued on page 68 Oral fluid testing is the closest thing to an impairment test that exists. It detects use within the past day. Collections are directly observed. You can run one anywhere.
View this content as a flipbook by clicking here.