Joe Reilly on Drug Testing in America
Curious about the drug screening industry? Looking to get your start in a rewarding career? Trying to navigate the changing landscape of federal and state laws and how they influence your companies drug testing policy? If you have leaned in for any of these questions then you have found the podcast you have been looking for. Join Joe Reilly on this informative and educational adventure in drug screening in America.
Joe Reilly on Drug Testing in America
Everything employers and individuals need to know about drug testing in 2025
Drug testing impacts millions of Americans - from employees and job-seekers to probationers and individuals testing for personal reasons. Yet few understand the complex systems behind that cup or swab.
Joe Reilly draws from 33 years of industry expertise to demystify workplace drug testing, tracing its evolution from military testing in the 1980s after a shocking USS Nimitz incident to Reagan's Drug-Free Federal Workplace initiative and today's comprehensive programs. He unveils surprising statistics, including that 25% of Americans used illicit substances last year, with an estimated 16% of users employed.
The podcast dives deep into testing methodologies beyond the standard urine test. Hair testing reveals substance use patterns from up to 90 days ago, while oral fluid detects very recent use - crucial distinctions for employers developing safety programs. Reilly expertly breaks down the difference between DOT-regulated transportation testing and non-regulated workplace programs, explaining that what began as primarily DOT testing has flipped to 80% non-DOT testing today.
For employers, implementing drug-free workplace programs involves far more than ordering tests. Reilly outlines the five essential components: written policies, supervisor impairment recognition training, employee education, assistance programs, and testing procedures. This comprehensive approach addresses prevention, intervention, and compliance with the complex patchwork of federal regulations and state laws.
Looking to understand drug testing for your workplace? Need testing for personal reasons? Considering starting a drug testing business? This foundational episode answers these questions while setting the stage for future deep dives into marijuana testing considerations, DOT compliance, and entrepreneurial opportunities in the testing industry.
Contact Joe directly at joe@joereilly.com with your drug testing questions, and subscribe to catch upcoming episodes exploring this fascinating intersection of science, compliance, and workplace safety.
Welcome. This is the Joe Reilly Podcast. Today we're going to be talking with Joe Reilly. My name is Jesse and I'll be the co-host of this episode. Real quick, just to introduce Joe, because he has been in the drug testing industry for many, many years, With a bio extending over 32 years of experience.
Speaker 1:Joe has been involved in many, many ways For the past 32 years. For instance, joe has become a leading national expert on workplace drug testing, drug-free workplace programs programs and specimen collections for drug tests. Joe is the president of national drug screening. He oversees all aspects of the company's operations and provides in-depth consultation to clients on all things drug and alcohol testing, particularly dot compliance solutions. Joe also operates jo Riley and Associates Inc. Providing consulting and training services to all corners of the drug testing industry.
Speaker 1:Joe served for 12 years on the board of directors of DATIA, the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association, now NDASA, and for four years or four of those those years as the chairman of the board, he has provided consulting, speaking engagements and training programs for many organizations, including the US Small Business Administration, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, ondcp, the US Department of Education, the Society for Human Resource Management and the Washington DC Department of Public Works, the Florida Office of Drug Control, the Florida Department of Corrections, the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association, the National Association of Professional Background Screeners, the Florida Trucking Association, florida Small Business Development Centers and numerous chambers of commerce and business associations. That is a mouthful, joe. Welcome to the studio and welcome to the first episode of Joe Reilly Podcast. How are you today?
Speaker 2:I am wonderful, Jesse, and thank you for that introduction. Apologize for it being a little bit long, but I actually gave you the short version.
Speaker 1:I understand that, except for just all of the abbreviations, because a lot of government entities they love their abbreviations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I want to tell you a little bit about this podcast. This is our first episode and we're going to continue these about every couple of weeks and really my focus is me, Joe Riley, on drug testing in America, and what I really mean by that is we drug test people, not drugs. So sometimes when I tell people I'm in the drug testing business, they say, oh, you test cocaine. I say no, I drug test people for cocaine, to find out if they're using drugs. So we help employers with drug testing and we also help individuals.
Speaker 2:Individuals all over America need a drug test from time to time for whatever personal reason, and we don't really judge. We give them a drug test for whatever reason they want. But my audience for this podcast Drug Testing in America is employers that need to drug test their employees and understand about drug testing, as well as individuals that need to get a drug test for themselves for whatever reason maybe probation, court order, child custody, just any personal reason so they understand drug testing. And also for the many people around America who are entrepreneurs, who are looking to get into the drug testing business and start their own business and we get so many calls for those. It's almost incredible People that want to start their own business, so this is a great place for them to start is the Joe Riley podcast on drug testing in America.
Speaker 1:I would agree. If anybody knows anything and if anybody could help somebody get into a position, it would be you. I feel like, of all those board positions, of all of the consulting that you've done, you can pretty much put somebody right in line with all the aspects of the industry, because there is more there's collection Again, there's the testing, there's yeah.
Speaker 2:And we're going to do a full episode on that, because you just said the magic word. There's collection. And people say I want to get trained to be a collector so I can be in a drug testing business. And I say I want to get trained to be a collector so I can be in a drug testing business. And I say, well, first you need to be trained on how to run a business, then you need to be trained on collection. But we're going to do a full episode on that. But before we kind of dive into our agenda I wanted to. We've got two sponsors which I have an intimate relationship with both sponsors since I own both of those companies. But can you talk about the sponsors just for a minute, jesse?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. Of course, National Drug Screening, which has been introduced already. Nds is a third-party administrator for our TPA for Drug and Alcohol Testing Services for Employers and Individuals, and that's a nationwide provider. Services are also offered to other drug testing companies, including a robust portal for test ordering, random program management and test results. The company is A-plus rated by the Better Business Bureau and has achieved 4.9 star ratings on Google reviews, which is a really incredible average.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're really proud of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So thank you National Drug Screening for sponsoring and, of course, our other sponsor, which which again, you see the logo in the corner that is Joe Riley and Associates, also known as JRA. Jra provides consulting services, training services and expert witness services in all matters related to workplace drug testing. Joe Riley has training thousands of drug test collectors throughout the nation. He has a proven track record as an expert witness in drug testing cases. Services are customized to the customer's needs and available throughout the USA Again, another national brand. So thank you for the partnership with them as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We're very proud of both companies that do very well. So I wanted to kind of kick this off with what our agenda for this episode is going to be. And to start off with it's going to be a little bit of history about the drug testing industry in America. We're going to talk, as we mentioned, about employer drug testing and we're going to break that down into regulated drug testing, which is employers regulated by the United States Department of Transportation, and we're going to break that down into non-regulated employers, which are people that are not regulated by the United States Department of Transportation.
Speaker 2:We're going to talk about what actually is a drug-free workplace. So when an employer does drug testing, it's not just about doing a drug test. It's a program that we put together. We'll describe that. We're going to talk about the various specimens that we test for. If you've ever been to a drug test, Jesse, you peed in a cup, but today we do much more than urine. We do hair, oral fluid, different specimen types. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about the drugs that we test for, which are a good number of drugs. Talk about the process and the methodologies that we do drug testing. We'll talk about why employers do drug testing. What's the end game for an employer? Why do they do it? We'll talk about why individuals do drug testing. We'll talk about the industry players, the people that are in the United States drug testing industry and laboratories medical review offers things like that and we'll touch base, finally, on getting into the drug testing business and again we'll dedicate a full podcast episode on that in one of our future episodes.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Why don't we begin with a little bit of history, if people are just not familiar with how it all started?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's a great way to start. As I mentioned in the agenda, the first real kind of drug testing we saw in America was back in 1968 in the Olympic Summer Games in Mexico City and drug testing in the Olympics goes on through today. It's a hot topic every four years when we see the Olympics. A lot of steroid use and even illicit substance abuse, so kind of got started in 68. But really for employment drug testing in the United States in 1981, there was a crash onto a US Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, and people died and people got hurt, lots of injuries and the Navy decided to test those people on that ship and they were very surprised that about 35 percent of those people tested positive for illicit drugs illicit drugs.
Speaker 2:Illicit drugs marijuana, cocaine, opiates, things like that so like more like street style stuff.
Speaker 2:Stuff they were getting out there all around the world Sure. And so based on that alarming result, the Navy decided then to do worldwide testing of all Navy personnel and they found very high positivity rate over 30%, wow. And that got the attention of all the other armed forces. So they followed and they started doing drug testing in the Army and the Marines, et cetera. So that's kind of where we started with workplace testing, really in the armed services.
Speaker 2:But then when Ronald Reagan was president back in 1986, and we often joke that he was the first president to pee in a cup because he really implemented employment drug testing in the United States, employment drug testing in the United States and President Reagan, he was calling on Fortune 500 companies to get them to take a look at drug testing programs, but not just drug testing, also offering a helping hand to people that did have a substance abuse problem. So it wasn't just about catch them and release them, it was about let's get people help and let's start with something called Employee Assistance Programs or EAP. But in 1986, september 15th exactly, ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12-564 called the Drug-Free Federal Workplace that work within the federal government. We're going to do drug testing on those employees that are in safety-sensitive positions where it makes sense to have drug testing pre-employment, random and other ongoing drug testing. So that was kind of the start of it.
Speaker 2:After the armed services, the federal government and then in 1988, congress passed what's called the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988, which said that if a private company has contracts with the federal government, well then they need to also be a drug-free workplace. If the federal government is going to give them millions of dollars to produce goods and services, they want to make sure those employees working on those projects are drug-free. And that Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 is still in existence today. So here in Melbourne, florida, where we are, we have a lot of defense contractors that do work for the federal government and they all are required to have drug-free workplace programs.
Speaker 1:And how is that implemented? Do they just consent to just these random tests, or is it something that they implement at the beginning of every year, the end of every year?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question, jesse. So they implement actually a program, it's not just testing.
Speaker 2:And we're going to come back around to that later on in the podcast and kind of get into the concept of a drug-free workplace in just a little bit more detail. Gotcha, okay, and then moving on with our little history lesson here. In 1988, the United States Department of Health and Human Services published what's called the Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing, and those guidelines, published in 1988, set the foundation for how we do drug testing for employment purposes in America. Those guidelines are still in effect. They've been tweaked, they've been edited, they've been brought up to date. But if someone really wants to understand where this all came from, it came from the publication of the 1988 Mandatory for federal workplace drug testing programs.
Speaker 2:Now, continuing on with our history, in 1989, under President George HW Bush, we started seeing drug testing of people on federal probation or federal supervised release programs, and so those people now became subject to drug testing. We also saw a big development in 1991. And this really kicked off and started the required United States Department of Transportation, or DOT, required drug testing. So DOT regulated employers being trucks, buses, airplanes, vessels for hire, subways, railroads, mass transit systems, and Congress passed the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991. And it was really based on two incidents that occurred that got Congress's attention. And so, just prior to 1991, there was a New York City subway train crash and the train operator had a blood alcohol content of 0.21% more than 13 hours after the crash, very intoxicated.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Okay, five people died and over 200 injuries.
Speaker 1:Unreal.
Speaker 2:That got the attention of Congress Right. And then, shortly after that, there was a crash of a Maryland Amtrak and Conrail train and several crew members tested positive for marijuana. There were six deaths and 174 injuries. So when Congress passed the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act, which at that time affected about 10 million employees in the United States that are regulated by United States Department of Transportation, Drug and alcohol testing of those 10 million people became required Pre-employment testing, random testing, other testing which we'll talk about later in the podcast.
Speaker 1:That seems, you know, unfortunately, nothing gets the attention until a disaster strikes, and then all of a sudden, the necessity yeah.
Speaker 2:So that brings up a great point, because we're going to we're going to have a future episode which is going to discuss everything about marijuana today, in 2025. And my personal thoughts about marijuana is it has no place in the workplace and I just fear that we don't see another train crash or an airplane crash and find out that the train conductor or the pilot was stoned on marijuana and a bunch of people die because things might change radically if something like that happens.
Speaker 2:But again, we're going to spend a whole uh podcast in the future about marijuana.
Speaker 2:We'll have a guest for that podcast oh fun and, uh, probably for most of most of the future podcasts. Uh, we will have a guest. We'll still have you, jesse. We enjoy you being here with us for sure, um. But we'll have a guest for. We'll still have you, jesse, we enjoy you being here with us, for sure. But we'll have a guest for those future podcasts. So a few more current facts.
Speaker 2:When drug testing started it was all about urine drug testing, pee in a cup. Well, now other things are being tested, like hair. Now you and I it might be a little difficult, but we can test arm hair and we can test chest hair and leg hair Oral fluid testing is becoming very popular. And back in the early, back in the late 80s, when drug testing started and people started like a drug testing company I started in 93. But in the very late 80s, when people started a drug testing company, it was all about DOT drug testing, because that was the low-hanging fruit that was required. So people made a business out of it.
Speaker 2:But today our laboratories tell us that 80% of the testing they do actually is non-DOT, non-regulated testing. So it's kind of flip-flop. In 1989, it was probably 98% DOT, today it's 80% non-DOT. In addition, there are many state laws now that affect drug testing and before there weren't. When I started in business in 1993, there were very little laws in the state level about drug testing. Today there's a whole bunch of them over 600 laws but there are 14 states, florida being one of them, that say to businesses with a statutory requirement, if you want to participate in this voluntary law and implement a drug-free workplace, we will mandate that workers' compensation insurance give you a discount.
Speaker 1:Well, that seems fair.
Speaker 2:That's a great benefit because, one of the ideas about drug testing is it keeps a safer workplace and eliminates accidents and workers' comp claims.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure institutions like OSHA would endorse that also. You know, as far as keeping the workplace safe, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Osha is very much involved in that. Now that's kind of the end of our history lesson. We're going to move into employer drug testing and we're going to start with DOT, which we've mentioned a couple times. So if you're a trucking company with trucks over 26,001 pounds, you're required to have drug testing. If you're a bus company and you're transporting 16 or more passengers including the driver, you're required to have DOT drug testing. So there's regulations for that drug testing. There's an overall DOT regulation, 49 CFR, part 40. There's actually an office within the United States Department of Transportation called the Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy and Compliance and they actually just brought in a new director just this week.
Speaker 2:And then there are various agencies under DOT regulating various types of transportation industries and they have their own regulations for drug testing. None of those agency regulations are inconsistent with the overall DOT 49 CFR, part 40, and that tells us how we drug test. The individual agency regulations tell us who we drug test and when we drug test them, and they also cover things like required supervisor training for reasonable suspicion. So those agencies, really quick, are Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, trucks and buses, faa, federal Aviation Administration, the airline industry. Fra is the Federal Railroad Administration, our railroads, amtrak, conrail, fta.
Speaker 2:Federal Transit Administration is mass transit systems. The one you probably never heard of is PISMA, phmsa, pipeline Hazardous Material Safety Administration. Those are businesses that work on oil and gas pipelines throughout the United States. And then there is US Coast Guard, which technically no longer falls under DOT it used to. It now falls under the United States Department of Homeland Security, but they do follow the DOT drug testing regulations. They have a memorandum of agreement to follow the DOT drug testing requirements. So those are our DOT agencies. Okay, and required DOT drug testing, which is a big part of our industry, probably about 800,000 employers in the United States and about 10 million employees.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of people getting tested.
Speaker 2:That only scratches the surface, really Okay. So let's talk about non-DOT or non-regulated businesses, which are the overwhelming majority of businesses in the United States. There's actually over 33 million businesses in the USA and the overwhelming majority of those are small businesses like mine and yours. There's about 20,000 large corporations with over 500 employees, and there are companies in the US some of the bigger companies that have actually discontinued drug testing. They have found it in their particular case and a lot of it because of the marijuana ideologies out there. But companies like Amazon, apple, google, microsoft, twitter, Target, whole Foods Markets, starbucks they've actually discontinued drug testing.
Speaker 2:Now we'll talk more about this when we have our episode about marijuana, because that's a big reason why people discontinue. But one of the things you'll hear us talk about I'll have my friend, phil Dubois, who's a big proponent of and knows a lot about the marijuana issues with state laws. With state laws, and our ideology is that an employer should have the right to maintain a drug-free workplace and test for marijuana, but many state laws disagree with us. But for those companies that are stopping drug testing altogether, it's really going to be shameful if a major incident or accident occurs and come to find out that that person was high on drugs. It's going to be kind of devastating.
Speaker 2:But, in all cases, state laws must be considered. In implementing a drug-free workplace program, safety concerns are paramount. Drug-free workplace programs can reduce liability and insurance costs, can help increase productivity and performance, can help a company maintain a professional workplace culture, a culture where other employees might not feel threatened because maybe their coworkers are using drugs or alcohol while working.
Speaker 2:Non-regulated companies might implement a drug-free workplace because of a compliance requirement with a client that is hiring them or a partner requirement them or a partner requirement.
Speaker 2:So, for example, it's interesting that, just for an example, there are local businesses all over America that do work for companies like Verizon or AT&T or even Amazon where they're doing local deliveries, and a lot of times these larger companies are requiring their subcontractors to implement drug-free workplace programs, particularly if those subcontractors are driving. Now I did mention those larger companies that are discontinuing drug testing, but I need to throw back in there that if they have driving positions, they're not discontinuent for driving positions or really safety-sensitive type positions. Doing drug testing at a company may help prevent theft People might steal from the customers, they might steal from their coworkers, they might steal from the company, they might steal from their co-workers, they might steal from the company and also a drug-free workplace for a non-regulated business can support employee well-being, kind of again tying in with employee motivation and just overall well-being of the employees that work for a company. And, of course, reputation. And of course reputation.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting that if you lived in a town and there were 10 plumbing companies, and nine of them were doing drug testing, and you had the 10th company that wasn't doing drug testing, jesse, who do you think might be applying for jobs there? People on drugs, exactly, exactly, people on drugs.
Speaker 2:Exactly so you had asked about. You know, for, like the companies that have contracts with the federal government, what are their requirements.
Speaker 2:So we're going to talk about that now, the drug-free workplace and I have kind of a graphic maybe you can pull it up that kind of explains what a drug-free workplace is. There's five components of it and we really always start with a needs assessment when we talk to an employer, find out what they need, what kind of a company they have, what the employees do are there safety-sensitive positions? What's their overall philosophy. And then we implement a five-part drug-free workplace program that starts with a written policy, a written policy that talks about the who, what, where, when and how of the drug testing and the consequences of violating the policy. So that's going to be important, okay. So if something happens in the drug testing program and people say, oh, this happened, what do we do now? We say, well, you got to go back to your policy and see what it says. And if they say, well, we don't have a policy, well, you better get one real quick. And I can help you with that, exactly so. Secondly, we have what's called supervisor training, and when we talk about supervisor training in relation to a drug-free workplace program, we're talking about training supervisors to recognize signs that someone that's working might be impaired, because if they're working and they might be impaired. That could lead to a serious liability situation, an accident, products not being produced correctly, all kinds of things and if a supervisor's never been trained on recognizing signs of impairment, they're probably never going to take somebody in for a reasonable suspicion drug test and alcohol test. So by providing them training and a form to document reasonable suspicions that always leads to, we need to rule out that this suspicion is not about the person being impaired and potentially using alcohol while working or using illicit drugs while working.
Speaker 2:The third component is educating the employees. Okay, illicit drugs have harmful effects in the workplace and that's why we implement a drug-free workplace. But we want to tell our employees this. We don't want to just say, oh, here's a policy period, okay, we want to educate them. We want to tell them a little bit about these drugs that we're testing for and that they are harmful and they can affect your performance, and they can affect your performance and they can affect your health. So in a comprehensive drug-free workplace program, we educate employees. That could be a handout, it could be a webinar, it could be a lunch and learn, it could be a newsletter Lots of different ways that we can educate employees about the harmful effects of drugs. The next component is access to a SAP or an EAP. Now you might have a question there, jesse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do those stand for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. So SAP stands for Substance Abuse Professional. This is a licensed person that's been trained and qualified to deal with an employee regulated in the DOT program that has a positive. So if you work as a truck driver and you have a positive, you cannot drive the truck until you go see a substance abuse professional a SAP, substance abuse professional, a SAP and you're gonna have an initial evaluation. They might prescribe treatment and or education and you're gonna have a follow-up evaluation and then they're gonna issue you clearance for return to duty and that return to duty might be for the employee that you had, or maybe that employer that you had or maybe that employer fired you, but to go to work for a new employer you got to have that return to duty clearance from that SAP. So that becomes important.
Speaker 2:Now EAP relates more to the non-regulated, non-dot employers. Non-dot employers EAP standing for Employer Assistance Program and EAP programs have been around since the late 80s, from when Ronald Reagan was president, and sometimes they're not about drug issues EAP programs they can be about any personal issue that an employee has, be about any personal issue that an employee has, including a drug problem or an alcohol problem, or maybe a financial problem or a marital problem or a death in the family or an illness in the family. It's really a way to help employees cope with personal problems, because somebody that's working they're having personal problems. It might be likely to affect their performance and if we can get them help we can ensure their better well-being and we can have them be more productive. But in the drug-free workplace arena for the non-DOT regulated company, it's okay. You had a positive. You're now required to go see EAP or employee assistance program and you may have to go through a treatment program or an educational program. We might fire you, we might give you a second chance. That's going to be up to the employer's leadership and when we write policies for companies we have to ask them up front what is going to be your disciplinary policy? Oh, and they say up to including termination. Oh, what does that mean? Does that mean I fire Jesse and I keep Joe? That's not good. The policy must be consistent. So we either terminate or perhaps we give a second chance. So we've got four components so far. The fifth one is the actual drug testing. So when people hear about drug testing and companies that drug test, they think it's all about drug testing. But it's actually about this entire five component program the policy, the supervisor, training, the employee education, the access to employee assistance programs or substance abuse programs, then the testing itself. We'll spend another episode in a lot more detail on all that also. So today is kind of like the big overview, and today's probably going to be a little bit longer of a podcast than our future podcast, because we're laying the foundation and for anybody that's really looking to get into this business, this is going to be a great podcast because this is all about drug testing in America.
Speaker 2:So what specimens do we use to do drug testing? Primarily urine. We've all heard about we got to pee in a cup and that comes with something that we call in our industry the yuck factor. We got to pee in a cup. Now it's not so bad anymore because most people that have gone for a job and people go for more jobs today than they did years ago they don't stay places. For 30 years They've had to pee in a cup multiple times. Okay, so that's a urine drug test For alcohol in workplace drug testing.
Speaker 2:We use a breathalyzer, and we use a breathalyzer that is approved by the United States Health and Human Services Department so that it's not just a toy you buy in Amazon for $100. It's a real breathalyzer, okay, and it's calibrated. It's kind of similar to what the police use. And so people think we're taking blood at work when someone needs an alcohol test. We're not. Blood is a potential specimen for drug testing, but it is very, very infrequent because it is very expensive about three times more than a urine test or a breath alcohol test and it's very invasive and we need a phlebotomist to draw blood right, and that was the question I was leading into because there are different costs associated.
Speaker 1:Whereas you pee in a cup and there's like a little strip on it that'll indicate right away that's going to be a lot cheaper than sending it to a lab and having to analyze like a hair sample.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's much cheaper and that's a great point, jesse. And you see, if you go to that slide and maybe show some of the graphics there, we actually show an instant testing cup down at the bottom left and that's a urine cup where we read the strip, and over on the right you see an oral fluid instant testing device. Now, both of those cannot be used for DOT. Dot requires all specimens go straight to the lab. So we have lab-based testing, we have instant testing, which is what you mentioned. With instant testing, if it is non-negative, it has to go to the laboratory for confirmation to rule out things like false positives. So that instant testing product is good for a negative. You put the person to work and it's low cost. So it's quick and low cost. Now saliva alcohol is another option. That's an instant test, quick and low cost.
Speaker 1:But if we do saliva alcohol and it's positive, we need to confirm that test 15 minutes later with a breathalyzer test 15 minutes later with a breathalyzer and typically people understand breathalyzers are associated with like a DUI and a roadside test. Who's qualified in the workplace to administrate that?
Speaker 2:Great question. So again, the device that's being used must be an approved device. Okay, and there's a list of approved devices and the person administrating the device must have been trained on that particular device. And after they get trained they must perform proficiency demonstration. They must perform five practice breath alcohol testing exams error-free, so that they're now qualified and certified to administer this. So typically that's done at a clinic or a drug testing company where they have a trained and qualified breath alcohol technician.
Speaker 1:Now, it seems like a lot of this burden lies on the HR department. Now, it seems like a lot of this burden lies on the HR department. Are HR professionals?
Speaker 2:getting more qualified? Typically not, but the burden does lie on the HR professional. But they hire what's called a third-party administrator, which is a company like National Drug Screening that becomes their arm to help them with these burdens, gotcha. So that's what creates our industry of drug testing third-party administrators, gotcha. Then we talk about oral fluid, which has been around really now for about 15 years oral fluid drug testing and it's an easier collection because we're just putting that little sponge on a stick in somebody's mouth. Okay, it's an observed collection which helps to eliminate cheating, because when you send somebody in a closed bathroom with a cup, you tell?
Speaker 2:them pee in a cup. You don't know what they're doing in there. Okay, so less cheating on oral fluid. But the biggest difference with oral fluid is it detects more recent use of the drugs. So, for example, with urine, it might take six to eight hours for the drug metabolites to break down into the urine. So we smoked a joint this morning, like we did in the car before we came in here Just kidding.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we both peed in a cup right now it wouldn't show up, oh, okay, but if we did an oral fluid test, it's testing for the parent drug, not the metabolite. So oral fluid testing can give us a quicker detection time, which is going to be much more beneficial for something like a reasonable suspicion test, because you're trying to find out if they use drugs today at work, or a post-accident drug test. You're trying to find out if they use drugs prior to the accident.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little personal story. I was involved in a workplace incident and I was immediately they didn't ask questions they're like because I think I misstepped and fell off a loading dock or something it was. It was pretty, it was pretty bad, even though I shook it off and I wanted to return to work. They're like yeah, that can't happen, you have to do this first.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, yeah, now the one thing they shouldn't do first. If you're hurt, they should do the medical treatment first. Right, then do the drug test. But that happens, you've got to go get a drug test. You've got to go get a drug test. Well, first, how about stitching up this 7-inch cut on my arm? Let's do that first Luckily the dumpster broke my fall.
Speaker 2:So it was just a little bit of a superficial scratch on the back and it ripped my shirt and I was like no, you know, I want to go back to work. But, yeah, well, let me tell you, since we, since we breached that topic, let me tell you why they do post-accident drug testing. A lot of people don't know this. Ok, why do they do post-accident drug testing? Ok, well, they want to find out if you're using drugs. That's one reason. But their bigger reason is, when you fell off that loading dock, right, and they tested you and let's say, you did break your back, right, okay, and you're going to go out on workers' comp and you may be laid up for a year and they're going to be paying you for a year, right, okay. But if you fell off that loading dock and you tested positive for alcohol and you tested positive for cocaine, there is a presumption that it was the cocaine and the alcohol that caused you to fall and therefore workers' comp is denying your claim and they save a boatload of money. That's right. That's why people do post-accident drug testing. Now, to round this out, on the specimens, we got hair also. We already covered blood, okay. So hair testing is popular but it's a little different. Okay, that joint we smoked this morning will not show up in our hair for seven days, so they could test us tomorrow. We're still clean. Seven days later it starts showing up, but it shows up for about 90 days out. So a hair test is more of a lifestyle test, gotcha.
Speaker 2:Okay, now some of the largest trucking companies in America. You know, they hire 30, 40, 50,000 truck drivers and they drive 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 trucks. Those companies have a huge amount of liability and those companies are really smart. So they're required to do a DOT urine drug test, which they do. They're not required to do a hair test, and a hair test is fairly expensive, which they do. Okay, they're not required to do a hair test and a hair test is fairly expensive, but they do it anyway because they want to find out if this guy didn't study for the urine test because he could stop using drugs for a week and he could pass the urine drug test. But they'll find out that maybe he's been using cocaine a month ago or two months ago, or smoking pot every day for the last two and a half months. Wow, and they're not going to hire that guy because he has a lifestyle of using illicit drugs.
Speaker 1:And the hair will show that much. Even though maybe it's a shorter hair sample like myself, Do I have that much history in my existing hair?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you may not have quite that much history. Your hair. We might go with arm hair or chest hair or leg hair, and the hair on the body grows kind of slow, so we do have history in there. Typically with head hair we need an inch and a half Gotcha. So both you and I, I don't think we're qualified Right. Gotcha so both you and I. I don't think we're qualified Okay. So an inch and a half they are. It's not like 100% scientifically accurate, but it's approximately 30 days for every half inch.
Speaker 1:Oh, fascinating.
Speaker 2:Now we don't test people six inches of hair. Find out what they did five years ago Right. We typically test an inch and a half, so it's going back up to not exactly up to 90 days. Gotcha, okay, okay. So now let's talk about the drugs. What drugs have you used, jesse?
Speaker 1:We're not going to elaborate.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I'll admit I smoked a little pot in college, but I didn't inhale, you know.
Speaker 1:No, I think, as anybody growing up in florida, you're around those, those kind of things and and ultimately, like in my generation, it was like a lot of pills. You know, the, the, the prescription pills, you know I mean a lot of my peers.
Speaker 1:It was, uh, opiates. I've had a lot of friends abuse them and I've even lost a few. And it's disheartening. Because marijuana, you know, they say there's no historical evidence of an overdose. If you overdose, you usually pass out or eat yourself into a coma before you could overdose. But most but those type of things in pharmaceuticals, there's no second chances. And now we're seeing Narcan being used. But those type of things in pharmaceuticals, there's no second chances.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And now we're seeing Narcan being used, and these are all again prescription, and so it's a much different landscape and so I've avoided it. I've dabbled in Xanax or two in high school because it was a popular thing at that time. Again, we're talking 30 years ago, but it's the pharmaceuticals that. It's just abundant and you can find them anywhere.
Speaker 2:And that's a great point and it brings up an interesting conversation, and we used to call that the pill mills here in Florida. Yes.
Speaker 2:You know where there used to be a guy on the beach side, a doctor that was prescribing you know, oxycontin like crazy and there was a hot dog stand outside the doctor's office who made a kill in selling hot dogs because people were lining up. That doctor did go to jail, by the way, but that whole pill mill, oxycontin pandemic, whatever you want to call it okay, created us in the drug testing industry.
Speaker 2:To call it okay, created us in the drug testing industry adding OxyContin to our standard drug testing panel. Wow, Prior to that, we didn't test for OxyContin, right, okay.
Speaker 2:So what drugs do we test for? First, we have the standard five panel. That's what everybody's heard about the standard five panel and that's what DOT does the standard five panel. So I'm going to tell you what the five panel is. It's supposedly five drugs, but it really adds up to about 12. Okay, so pay attention here. All right, so we got amphetamines, but that includes methamphetamines as well as MDMA, which, if you don't know, that's ecstasy. Okay, it also includes cocaine, crack cocaine too, marijuana, pancyclidine or PCP, which probably haven't heard of anybody using that in the neighborhood lately, but we still get positives for PCP throughout the country, so they keep it on the standard five panel.
Speaker 2:Then we go to opiates or opioids, and what we used to test for was now added hydrocodone, hydromorphone, oxycodone and oxymorphone. Wow, so that's our DOT 5 panel. Sometimes, for non-DOT, we call it a DOT-like 5 panel, which means it's the exact same thing. That's why we call it DOT-like, right, okay. And you know, for people that have been doing drug testing for a long time like 25 years, whether it's employers or drug testing companies got to be real careful because the five panel used to not have those expanded opiates, so you got to make sure you're not ordering with your laboratory the old five panel. You got to be ordering the current five panel. Okay, dot or DOT, like Now we can add other drugs, not for DOT but for non-DOT.
Speaker 2:We can add other drugs. Everything in DOT is regulatory, it's, it is what it is and it can't change without a change in law. And that requires going into the federal registry and public comment and takes years. It took about three years to get those oxycodones added to that five panel. So the additional drugs to make up what a lot of people commonly know as a 10 panel would be the first five, the DOT-like, and then barbiturates, benzodiazepines, methadone, propoxypene and methiqualine. So if we go back up to the benzodiazepines, that's where some people may have experimented with Xanax and things like that over time.
Speaker 2:Now, when we get over 10, okay, somebody says I need a 12 panel, or I need a 13 panel, or I need a 14 panel. There could be a 17 panel. Okay, when we get over 10, we kind of need to know what drugs are you asking for, because there's no standard. There's a standard five panel, there's a standard 10 panel, but what are the other drugs you need? Could it be fentanyl? Could it be tramadol? Could it be mepridine? Could it be ketamine? Do you know what ketamine is?
Speaker 1:On the street. I think it's called special K.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there's also a horse tranquilizer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I thought it was a cat tranquilizer. There you go. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So these are the drugs that we test for. Okay, and it could be pills, and we also test for alcohol and we could do a straight urine alcohol test, which we don't recommend because it does not detect current impairment. If your urine shows positive for alcohol, it doesn't mean you're drunk, okay.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It could mean you had a couple of drinks last night. It could mean you're diabetic. So we don't recommend urine alcohol testing. But there is a test called ETG and we can do it with urine or we can do it with hair. Etg tells us that someone drank alcohol. Not they're impaired, they drank alcohol. Okay, so with urine it goes back 72 hours. So if I did an ETG urine test on you here this morning, it would tell me if you drank last night, friday night, or the night before Thursday night, okay. So where's that important? Well, that's important for people on court release programs where if you ever drink again, you go back to jail. Okay, probation, if you drink, you go back to jail. It could be a highly paid executive. That's a really bad alcoholic. If you drink again, you're going to lose your job. You're on your fourth chance. Here. We're going to do regularly scheduled ETG testing, okay. So ETG can be with urine up to 72 hours, but with hair up to 90 days, up to 90 days with hair. So those are the drugs that we test for.
Speaker 2:I want to talk a little bit about the drug testing process. It may seem simple, but it's important that people understand it. The first thing that happens is we collect a specimen. So you go to a facility a Quest Diagnostics, a LabCorp you go to a local facility here that is not the laboratory facility here. That is not the laboratory. That is a facility that's collecting the specimen. Now, if they're doing instant testing, they might do it there, but if they're doing lab straight to lab testing, they are shipping that specimen out to a central lab. That could be in Lenexa, kansas, south Haven, mississippi. There's probably about seven or eight locations throughout the United States. These are big facilities like the size of a super Walmart that are locked down, keypad entry, escorts only no person going for a drug test ever goes to the laboratory no person going for a drug test ever goes to the laboratory.
Speaker 2:So HR people say all the time I'm going to send Jesse to the lab to get his drug test. You don't go to the lab, you go to Quest, right around the corner. So with the instant test, after five minutes they can read the strip and they can see that it's either negative or what we call non-negative. If it's negative, we're good to go, we're going to hire you, put you to work For DOT. We cannot use that instant test. If it's non-negative, it has to go to the laboratory. It gets sealed up, shipped to the lab for what's called confirmation testing to make sure it's positive for the specific metabolite of the specific drug. Okay, it's positive for opiates, specifically codeine. We'll use that as our example. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:So anything that goes to the lab, if it shows up positive on the first round of testing, it goes into a second round of testing, a different type of testing, more expensive pinpoints, more of the exact metabolite of the drug. So we now at the lab, we have your specimen and you're positive for codeine. That goes to a medical review officer. That result it goes through data transfer, okay, and the MRO gets it and sees that Jesse's positive for codeine. The MRO is a medical review officer. Is a licensed physician that has been trained and qualified to review drug test results. Physician that has been trained and qualified to review drug test results. The MRO calls you Jesse. We got your drug test result. You're positive for codeine codeine. Is there any medical explanation for that Right? Do you have any medical explanation?
Speaker 1:Say yes, yes, it was prescribed to me.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, good, good. So what I'm going to need, jesse, is I'm going to need the name of your pharmacy and I'm going to need the prescription number. I'm going to verify you're telling the truth and, if you are, I'm going to report this to your employer as a negative.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay.
Speaker 2:So no one ever needs to worry about their prescriptions when they go for a drug test. It is taken care of. If they show up on the drug test, we don't need to know about it in advance because the person that's collecting your pee is not a scientist and not a doctor. So sometimes people bring their whole bag of pills into the drug test and the collector says that is protected health information, Right? Please don't share that with me. Violation of HIP the drug test. The collector says that is protected health information, Right, Please don't share that with me. Violation of HIPAA Okay, so the MRO then reports to the employer and the MRO result is a final result.
Speaker 2:An employee can say let's say they are positive for cocaine, they still have that same conversation, but there are no prescriptions for cocaine. But they give them the benefit to have the same conversation and they come back to work and they tell their employer I never used cocaine. This is BS. And well, did the MRO talk to you about a challenge to your test? Well, yeah, they said something about I could have a retest of my specimen at another lab at my cost and the HR person would call me or their TPA. And what does that mean Because they forgot. We explain it to them. Well, that means that when the lab did the testing and it was positive, they saved some of the specimen. And they can now.
Speaker 2:Because now this person is saying the lab made a mistake, right, I never used cocaine. Well, I guess the lab made a mistake. Okay, so we're going to send it to another lab, but guess what? It's going to cost about 200 bucks and that's going to be your expense, Jesse. Okay. And then a lot of people will say nevermind, Guess why they say nevermind. A lot of people will say never mind, Guess why they say never mind, they're guilty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they'd rather spend the $200 on more cocaine. That's why they say never mind, 99.7% of the time it comes back the same positive result. If it does come back different, there's a big investigation on that first lab. So that's our drug testing process Methodologies. We kind of talked about urine, breath, saliva, oral fluid, hair, instant blood. We can also test fingernails, and that goes back up to 90 days, also just like hair, wow, okay. So with fingernails we do clippings and shavings. Curious, okay, interesting, okay.
Speaker 2:So why do employers drug test? Well, samhsa, which is a part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, samhsa is called the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration. They say that workplace drug testing was implemented as an effort to deter substance abuse and its effects on productivity, health and safety in the nation's workforce. So that's why we do drug testing safety, health and productivity, and also because people are using drugs. Okay, and we have some statistics here, because SAMHSA does a study every year Okay, an anonymous study and they identify that In 2023, an estimated 70.5 million people used illicit drugs over the past year. And you can see those statistics up here, that they're alarming, okay, 70.5 million people okay.
Speaker 2:That's 24.9. That's right about 25% of the population, and it's estimated that 16% of those people have a job. So that means that anywhere where there are people working, there is likely people using illicit drugs. Now, most of this is marijuana 61.8 million people currently using marijuana, 21.8 percent of the population, but lots of people also using opioids. Heroin is making a comeback, cocaine and even PCP. Wow.
Speaker 2:As well as fentanyl use which, as you mentioned, can be very deadly. So this is the problem that drug testing is helping to solve. We're not the solution by any means, but we're a part of the solution. And why employers do drug testing also is to have a safe and healthy workplace. Is to have a safe and healthy workplace less accidents, less workers' comp claims. Keep in compliance, avoid fines and penalties from DOT not lose contracts from companies they do work for and reputation.
Speaker 2:The last thing a company wants is oh, xyz company, their driver crashed into a daycare center last week and killed four kids and come to find out he was smoking crack for the last two years. Oh geez, wouldn't be very good reputation, okay. So big problem More Americans are testing positive than ever before, are testing positive than ever before, and we see this in the media, on TV, in the movies, on social media, and that really wakes up employers a lot of times, because remember, we've got 33 million employers in the US. Probably only 10 million of them do drug testing. Okay, if that, okay. So a business owner may see something on TV or maybe something even happens in their own family or extended family and they say I need to start drug testing at.
Speaker 2:Individuals can order their own drug test. Sometimes that's hard for them to do because if they call Quest up or LabCorp up and Quest or LabCorp will say, well, do you have an account with us? Do you have a doctor's order? No and no. But if they call National Drug Screening, we can set them up with a test and send them right back to Quest and they'll do it, or LabCorp or any one of 20,000 facilities we have access to all across the country, and this is for people that are on probation, parole, court-ordered testing, self-testing for any personal reason, school admissions, nursing students going into an internship, mom or dad testing their teenagers, sometimes mom or dad testing their adult children, spouses fighting, accusing each other of using drugs, or somebody's going for a job interview next week and they want to make sure they're clean.
Speaker 2:That happens all the time too, but at least they're being proactive and, okay, I'm going to stop using drugs and I'm going to get clean so I can get a job. So we have a great video that talks about individuals ordering their drug test and you can see the link to that video on the screen and I think there's something called show notes. We can put that link into, yeah, of course. Okay, excellent, I'm new at this podcast stuff, so I wanted to also ask you I should be saying something like correct me if I'm wrong like, if you like this podcast and you like this content, uh, share it, tell your friends like it, um, subscribe and ring a bell or something right?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, click that bell, smash that bell, as the kids say. Smash that bell, give a comment, ask a question, because it is a. We do monitor all of the comments and so that's always a place, and if there's any other way that they'd like to communicate with you, joe, now's a good time to mention that as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and anybody can email with any question joe at joereillycom. So Anybody can email with any question joe at joereillycom. So that's real easy. Joe at joereillycom and any questions we get we'll circle back on the future podcasts and we'll definitely answer them for all of the audience out there, okay.
Speaker 2:So the drug testing industry players. I'm going to start with the collection site we talked about, where you go to give your specimen. The collector is the person who fills out the paperwork and tells you to pee in the cup or tells you to open up your mouth and put the oral fluid sponge on a stick under your tongue. You've got a breath alcohol technician, commonly called a bat. You've got an alcohol screening test technician, commonly called an STT. You've got the laboratory lockdown facility. No one ever goes to the lab for their drug test.
Speaker 2:You've got a medical review officer, a licensed physician, who reviews every positive drug test. You've got a substance abuse professional or an employee assistance program, commonly called a SAP or a EAP. And then you have a TPA, which is an entity like National Drug Screening, which helps employers coordinate all these things under one roof. So we become an arm of the HR professional. So we become an arm of the HR professional. So National Drug Screening as a company. We have a sophisticated, robust web portal for both ordering drug testing, managing random testing and getting back results. We also help people get in the business of drug testing. We call that a TPA reseller program offering reseller support. We also provide a lot of consulting and training for the industry and a lot of times I do that really at no charge, like we're doing here on the podcast. We're providing expertise that I've accumulated over the last 33 years and I'm very happy to do that. It's really a passion of mine to help other people understand the drug testing industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's fascinating. It seems like there's a lot of ways, even entry-level ways there is, to get in with very little training or, you know, a four-year degree.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So one entry level would be if someone just wants to, let's say, be a mobile specimen collector and that's where a company would hire them to come out to their facility or to come out to a job fair or a construction site and just collect the specimens, wow, okay. So that mobile specimen collector is just collecting specimens and maybe I'm providing the back office, laboratory support, MRO support and so forth. So that's an entry-level new business. So that brings us right into our next topic here, which I think is almost our last topic is getting into the drug testing business and we will spend a whole podcast on this, okay, upcoming. So one part would be specimen collection only, which we just mentioned. Okay, so it's not as deep of being very, very, very knowledgeable like a TPA would be. You're just collecting specimens, you just bill for the mobile collections. You see that somebody can wrap a transit vehicle, they can take their own car, they can use the bathroom of the employer All different ways to become just a mobile specimen collector or a full service TPA or third party administrator.
Speaker 2:Regulations and best practices If it's non-DOT, you need to know the state laws and the state that you operate in and the best practices you need to limit exposure to liability. So starting a business is not easy. People think it is. Can you train me to be a collector and tomorrow I'll be in business? No, it doesn't work like that. Okay, first off, you got to do all the business stuff like you know. You know a bank account and a legal corporation or partnership or LLC, and you got to register with the federal government federal ID number. So there's there's a lot there. But, more importantly, in the drug testing industry, particularly if you're doing DOT, doing dot, non-dot, you got to know the regulations. You got to know the best practices. You got to learn that stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm flying out to lubbock, texas, tomorrow, oh fun. Um, to train uh, a new uh group that are starting up their drug testing business and I'll spend the next three days with them and they've already spent probably about 80 hours with me with homework and remote webinars. So we have a very comprehensive program that you know is about 150-hour program altogether to actually get somebody up and running into a full-scale TPA business. Again, we'll spend a full podcast on this. Probably have a guest also With that. We have our sponsors again. We just definitely wanted to thank those sponsors. Jesse, if you could mention a little bit about them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Well. The first one is Joe Riley and Associates. Big thanks to everything that they provided. Once again, to remind you, JRA provides consulting services, training services, expert witness services and all matters related to workplace drug testing. Joe Riley has trained thousands of drug test collectors throughout the nation and he has a proven track record as an expert witness in drug testing cases. Services are customized to the customer's needs and available through the USA, so contact JRA today if any of that applies to you. And, of course, national Drug Screening, also known as NDS. They are a third-party administrator or TPA for drug and alcohol testing services for employers and individuals and they are available nationwide. Services are also offered to other drug testing companies, including a robust portal for test ordering, random program management and test results. The company is A-plus rated by the BBB and has achieved a 4.9 average star rating on Google reviews, which is hard to do.
Speaker 2:We're really proud of that. Exactly so, Jesse Hall, I want to thank you for being my co-host.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Maybe briefly tell our audience a little bit about Space Coast Podcast, and I know you have an initiative coming up to work with some young people. I'd love to hear a little bit about that briefly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. So I quickly, you know, was deliberating about having a camp. I've kind of put it out there. It may not happen this season, but maybe even before school. We'll see if there's still some interest. It's not a big type classroom. I don't have a big facility. It really takes place right here, so it's all hands-on.
Speaker 1:I would invite five mature high school students, junior, senior level, someone who wants to be able to go to work right away, because the way I teach it's very hands-on. I'm not going to do a whole lot of homework, I'm not going to do a whole lot of type of how do you say like I'm not going to do like philosophy, I'm not going to show you the reasons why, I'm just going to put your hands on the machine, let you do it and hopefully you'll be able to learn with hands-on approaching. So again, it's not going to be theory, it's going to be absolute, like hands-on, and get that training. Because ultimately and it's kind of a selfish thing, joe I kind of want like an intern, I want a young guy or girl who I could qualify personally that could come in and do some work but also, you know, maybe build their own brand, create their own podcast, and in that I'm helping that next generation kind of level up and get familiar with how to leverage podcasting and all the utilities in my space, because I have a lot of live streaming capabilities. I have all kinds of capabilities. So no matter where you are in your podcasting adventure, I should say your quest, quest, your. You know I could that definitely help you elevate and get you to whatever that next step is.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, space Ghost Podcast. We've been in the uh podcast space since 18, since I incorporated and uh, so it's been, yeah, going on seven years now. Uh, we've had lots of success. We've produced over 600 episodes out of this space in that time and we're just thrilled to be now located in our fourth location at the Space Coast Creative Center right here in beautiful Melbourne. If you're familiar, it's right off Hibiscus and Gateway, right by the Oaks Plaza, just north of the location of the Melbourne Mall. So it's really easy to find, centrally located and we're just blessed to have been around and still providing some great services for our clients.
Speaker 2:Awesome and I think the initiative to work with young people and to try and bring somebody up as an intern. I think it's awesome. And to try and bring somebody up as an intern I think it's awesome. Over the years we've worked with some high school seniors in business programs at Palm Bay High. They had a great program and we took young folks in as interns and they were fabulous, they did a great job for us. So I appreciate and congratulate you on that initiative and hope it goes very well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm hoping to get some more. What I've learned is I kind of have to take that initiative, maybe in April, and not wait till the end of the school year, because I feel like a lot of kids have already either committed themselves to another summer program or they're going on vacation with the family and it's a little bit hard, but ultimately it's been something I want to do. So it could even be during the school year where instead of just a one-week intensive, they just come in a couple hours a week after school. But we'll have to figure that out Again. I just got to judge the interest because I know there's a lot of audio-video clubs in some of these high schools, but also when you go to Eastern Florida State they have a complete broadcast and they have a beautiful facility over there. So instead of going there and being green on day one, you could jump right in and start going to work and start producing your own production.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. So we're going to wrap up today's episode and again, thank you, jesse, and you mentioned where we're located in beautiful Melbourne, florida, but again, this podcast is for a national audience and it's all about drug testing in America by Joe Riley, and I just wanted to list out a few of our future topics for the next episodes that you'll see coming out and we'll put them out so that you can find them on social media. We'll put them out to our email list of our clients and interested parties, but send us your ideas for future episodes. A topic you may want to hear about and send us your questions, but we will be talking and those should be about anything about drug testing in America. That's what this podcast is all about. I don't do anything overseas internationally because it gets way too complicated with laws and rules and regulations. There's enough here in the United States. So some future topics what you need to know about starting a drug testing business. So that's going to be a topic that will garner a lot of interest.
Speaker 2:Marijuana considerations for employers in drug testing Again, in certain states California, washington State, new York, new Jersey there are some serious limitations on drug testing for marijuana and we're going to talk about what those facts are in some of those states and what states may be leaning towards protecting employees and what states may be leaning towards protecting employers, because there's a huge difference. Okay, we're going to talk about the specific five panel drug test, 10 panel drug test and other drug test panels, including healthcare professional panels, which are typically used like for hospital systems, where there's more access to more drugs that people working in the hospital might divert some of those drugs from the patient to themselves. If you remember, there was a cable TV series called Nurse Jackie that showed a nurse that was in that situation and it was bad. Okay, we're going to talk about how do employers determine reasonable suspicion of impairment where someone might be impaired or intoxicated at work, leading to getting a drug and alcohol test done to rule out that it's not drug and alcohol. Maybe it's some other problem. If somebody's acting funny or has some type of signs of potentially being impaired. Maybe it's a medical issue, but we got to also find out if it's drugs or alcohol.
Speaker 2:And we're going to spend a whole episode also on DOT, dot employers, what they need to know, what they need to know about required drug testing. We'll open it up to other topics that you may send in to us via email. Joe at joereillycom National Drug Screening has a Facebook page. Joe Reilly has a LinkedIn page, so keep up with us. We hope you come back. Please share, like, subscribe, ring the bell and, jesse, I'll let you close it out.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for being my co-host no, absolutely, and uh, and that'll conclude our first episode. Again, there's a lot of uh content within this first episode. Uh, we're gonna do uh some shorts where I'm gonna go ahead and segment some of the uh important things out. But for those that are really curious about all the opportunities, watch the whole episode, contact Joe with questions and check us out. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss another episode, and that'll do it for us. Thank you so much, joe, and we'll talk to everybody in a little bit. Take care Until then.