New Study Suggests That Cocaine Use More Prevalent than Marijuana

Is marijuana really the drug most commonly used by truck drivers? National Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse statistics say it is by far, but hair-testing advocates cite new research finding that truck drivers abuse cocaine more than cannabis.

“Our research found that DOT is seriously under-reporting the actual use of harder drugs by truck drivers, such as cocaine and illegal opioids,” said Doug Voss, professors of Logistics and Supply Chain Management at the University of Central Arkansas, in a news release. He was citing an analysis prepared for the Alliance for Driver Safety & Security, also known as The Trucking Alliance, late last year.

“Our analysis clearly concludes that hair testing identifies these harder drugs at higher percentages than the single urine testing method relied on by the federal government.”

Why Doesn’t the Clearinghouse Include Hair Testing?

Because of problems with drivers being able to cheat urine testing, or simply wait until drugs have passed out of their systems, some motor carriers use more stringent hair drug tests, which can detect drug use over a longer period of time. Advocates of hair-testing say it does a better job of catching "lifestyle" users of illegal drugs. In 2020, a study issued by the Alliance comparing urine- and hair-testing results found that almost 300,000 truck drivers would fail a hair test for drug use.

In 2015, Congress directed the Secretary of Transportation to “use hair testing as an acceptable alternative to urine testing” for pre-employment and random testing of commercial truck drivers. But the federal government has yet to issue guidelines.

DOT has said it must wait for guidelines from the Department of Health and Human Services, or more specifically the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The proposed hair-testing rule, issued by SAMHSA in 2020, was widely panned, in part because it required the less-stringent urine testing as a “back-up” test to corroborate the results.

The final deadline for comments on the proposal was well over a year ago.

HDT reached out to HHS for an update. In a statement, a spokesman said, "Under the Congressional rule, the Department of Health and Human Services is fulfilling its obligation by writing the proposed Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Using Hair. As is customary for this process, HHS sought public comment and is revising the proposed rule based on the feedback the department received. HHS will next send the final rule to the Office of Management and Budget for final review and publication."

HHS did not provide a timeline for that next step. The September 2020 proposal received 213 comments. While not a particularly high number of comments, the comments were generally critical of the proposal's details, so it's likely the proposal needed significant revision.

In its comments on the proposal, truck-safety-advocacy organization Road Safe America outlined why "continuing to require the use of urine-analysis as an alternate specimen to hair testing is flawed for several reasons:"

1. It undercuts the language in the FAST Act that motor carriers should be able to use hair testing “as an acceptable alternative to urine testing.” By requiring dependency on another alternative, hair testing itself cannot be considered an alternative form of test as the law states.
2. It undermines the benefits of hair testing in comparison to urine testing. Given the proposed guidelines would allow for a driver to contest a positive hair test with a urine analysis, there is a chance that certain drivers will test positive on the hair test and negative on the urine test. Not only does this create potential liability for the motor carrier, but they could end up putting an unsafe driver on the road as a result.
3. It requires motor carriers to spend money on unnecessary urine-analysis tests that have a lower detection rate than hair analysis. These are funds that could be appropriated to improving safety measures rather than on redundancy.