Skip to main content

Private Lives v Saving Lives

Privacy Intrusions and When Drug Testing in Australia


There has been a long running battle in Australia about whether an employer, when testing for drug use, can ask employees to provide a urine sample. Many unions have resisted the introduction of urine testing, arguing that saliva testing is sufficient and, as such, the process of sampling urine is an unjustified invasion of privacy. Employers, however, want to have both methods available, arguing that saliva testing has recognised limitations.

Last month, the Fair Work Commission (Commission) sided with an employer by granting them the right to perform both saliva and urine testing on its employees for drug use.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

GHB date rape drug is back and pill testing may not help, says ED doctor

GHB the Date Rape Drug Discovered by a Russian chemist in the nineteenth century, used as a general anaesthetic in 1970s Dunedin, picked up by Californian bodybuilders in the 1990s - the drug known as GHB has travelled a long road to its current resurgence in the Australian party scene. On the weekend in Melbourne, more than 20 people were hospitalised after reportedly overdosing at the Electric Parade festival. GHB was blamed - one of the biggest overdoses of the drug since 10 people collapsed outside at a Gold Coast nightclub in 1996. "It's back again," exclaimed Dr David Caldicott, a Canberra-based emergency department doctor who was in Adelaide when GHB hit in the '90s. "I thought we managed to explain to people it was a stupid drug to take. Around Australia there will be emergency doctors everywhere holding their heads in their hands going, 'Oh God!'. "A new generation has started learning the mistakes all over again." ...

What are Australian Standards Requirements 'REALLY'

Australian Standards for Urine and Saliva Drug Tests I thought it was about time to clear this one up, as there is just so much misinformation around the internet about Australian Standards compliance and those organisations that try to create the idea that they are the only company that create an Australian Standards drug test and all others are all making false claims and are somehow in breach of the ACCC Fair Trading Act. Lets get the facts! Australian Standards cut-off levels for Urine tests (copied straight from the Australian Standards): ASNZS 4308-2008 TABLE 1 IMMUNOASSAY SCREENING TEST CUT-OFF LEVELS Class of drug* Cut-off level, μg/L Amphetamine type substances                                 300 Benzodiazepines               ...

NSW Police overlooked scientific advice about hair sample

NSW Police overlooked scientific advice about hair sample and sacked drug-tested sergeant Eamonn Duff  March 12 2017  A single strand of hair that destroyed the life of a long-serving Sydney police officer has the potential to influence the future of not just the entire NSW Police Force but all workplaces across NSW. Sergeant George Zisopoulos insists he has been wrongly dismissed due to one of his hair follicles which returned a positive drug test reading. But while the state's top cop, Commissioner Andrew Scipione, has determined that, on the "balance of probabilities", the officer knowingly consumed drugs, scientific opinion suggests otherwise. Leading forensic experts have cast doubts over the decision to sack Sergeant Zisopoulos, concluding there is "no evidence" the substances found on his hair were ingested and that the minute readings may have been caused by "external contamination". ergeant Zisopoulos, who is the first NSW...