If you are a long-haul trucker in Mississippi, you need to be aware of a new change in store for 2018 that could affect the way you earn your living. In response to the opioid epidemic in the United States, the United States Department of Transportation is adding additional drugs to the list to its drug-testing panel: hydrocodone, hydromorphone, oxymorphone, and oxycodone to its drug-testing panel. Additionally, the USDOT is adding methylenedioxyamphetamine as an initial test analyte; and removing methylenedioxyethylamphetamine as a confirmatory test analyte.
These new drugs become subject to testing on January 1, 2018.
Of course, what makes these additional drugs complex to regulate is that, as opposed to illegal narcotics such as heroin or cocaine, the new additions are all legal with a prescription. Accordingly, you could have a positive test for them because you are using them according to a physician-issued prescription.
If you are required to take a drug test either as part of an employer mandated policy or after an accident, you need to know your rights. As opposed to having the presence of illegal drugs in your system, there may be a legitimate and legal reason that you have one of these substances in your system. If you are disciplined as a result of a “hot” test for any of these drugs, it is imperative that you contact an experienced trucking attorney immediately to protect your rights.
The Challenges of Testing for Opioids
We are all familiar with laws regarding DUI and the roadside stops and breath tests to detect alcohol in the blood of a driver. While those tests are hardly perfect, they are based on much more predictable science than testing for opioids. When a person consumes alcohol, it first enters the body through ingestion, quickly enters the blood stream, and is then expelled from the body. If you were to graph the amount of alcohol in a person’s blood after drinking, the graph would resemble a traditional bell curve, with very small amounts of alcohol at the time of initial ingestion, rising amounts while it is in the blood stream, and a sharp decrease back down to zero once it is expelled.
Opioids, like many other drugs, do not behave in the system like alcohol. If you have ever been prescribed these drugs, you know that they accumulate in the body slowly over days. That is because opioids accumulate in fat cells and do not just pass through the digestive and circulatory system like alcohol. Several days after using a prescribed opioid, you likely still have it excreting into your blood through fat cells that absorbed it days ago. If you have been taking a prescription opioid for a long period of time, you may be within the therapeutic dosage limits, but have enough of a prohibited drug in your system to suggest abuse.
While opioids have existed for quite a while, the effort to regulate their use in industries such as trucking remains new. Unlike alcohol, testing protocols are not well developed and can erroneously suggest a person using opioids for a legitimate health issue is actually abusing them.
What Should You Do if You Fail a Drug Test?
If you are accused of abusing opioids due to these new USDOT rules or any other company mandated drug testing, call an experienced trucking attorney to protect your rights.
Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi trucking law firm, to represent you if you have failed a drug test or are having other trucking-related legal problems
Barrett Law has the experience to protect your rights, your livelihood, and your income. Contact us now at (800) 707-9577 to get experienced counsel on your side.
