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
Are You Testing for the Right Drugs?
Navigating the complex world of workplace drug testing starts with understanding what you're actually testing for. In this illuminating conversation with Tom Fulmer, Vice President of Business Development at National Drug Screening, we unpack the sometimes confusing terminology around drug testing "panels" and what employers need to know to make informed decisions.
Did you know that a standard "5-panel" drug test can actually detect up to 13 different substances? We explore what makes up the foundation of workplace drug testing programs, from the DOT-mandated SAMHSA 5-panel to expanded options that include emerging drugs of concern like fentanyl. Tom shares his journey from having no drug testing experience to becoming the incoming president of the Substance Abuse Program Administrators Association, offering a unique perspective on how the industry has evolved.
For employers struggling with marijuana testing policies amid changing state laws, we offer practical guidance on developing compliant approaches. Whether you're operating in a single state or managing a multi-state workforce with different legal requirements, you'll learn strategies for crafting effective policies that balance safety concerns with legal compliance. We break down the differences between testing methods (lab-based vs. instant, urine vs. oral fluid vs. hair) and how panel options vary across these platforms.
Looking toward the future, we discuss SAMHSA's recent addition of fentanyl testing for federal employees, what this might mean for DOT regulations, and trends toward more customizable testing panels. Whether you're new to workplace drug testing or looking to update your current program, this episode provides the knowledge you need to select the right panels for your organization's needs. Have questions about your specific situation? Reach out to us directly at joe@nationaldrugscreening.com.
Welcome to another podcast episode of Joe Riley on Drug Testing in America. Today's episode Understanding Drug Testing Panels 5 Panel, 10 Panel and Beyond, with your host, joe Riley, president of National Drug Screening.
Speaker 2:Hi, Jesse, Glad to be back here on our podcast on drug testing in America. We have a good topic today that a lot of people may enjoy, especially people that are in the drug and alcohol testing business about understanding drug test panels, and we talk about traditional five-panel drug tests, 10-panel drug tests and beyond that. So there's a lot going on there with panels. We'll start, Jesse, if you can talk about our sponsor.
Speaker 1:We welcome Joe Riley and Associates. They are a consultant for the drug testing industry. They offer expert witness services, marketing and sales consultation, policy writing, new startup, comprehensive training and consultation, plus drug-free workplace trainings Awesome.
Speaker 2:So our guest today is Tom Fulmer. Tom Fulmer is the Vice President of Business Development for National Drug Screening. Welcome, Tom.
Speaker 3:Thanks, joe, appreciate it. Look forward to being on the podcast today.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Glad to have you, tom, and can you share with our audience a little bit about you and your journey into the drug testing industry, from the time you entered until now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's an interesting story. It's been a little while now back in the day and so I'm obviously Vice President of Business Development here at National Drug Screening oversee all aspects of that. But prior to coming to the National Drug Screening, I really didn't have any experience in the drug testing industry and, having built several companies over the years, I'd never even drug tested an employee, never had a drug test and never even really considered it, and so this industry was a was kind of a new change to me. And you know, joe, you and I go way back in the day through chamber and all that kind of stuff, and when we caught up and started discussing this opportunity, I started looking into it and found it to be a very interesting opportunity and learned a lot about that in a fairly short period of time, had the benefit of your expert tutelage. You know, having been in the industry for many years.
Speaker 3:I came from a background in accounting originally and I graduated with a degree from the University of Alabama.
Speaker 3:Everybody knows I'm a big Crimson Tide fan and immediately immediately yeah, I know, exactly Immediately did not take up accounting and went and became a tennis pro for about 10 years and then built a few other companies along the way and kind of that evolution led me into things with sales and marketing and business development, which led us to connect here.
Speaker 3:And as I got started in the industry, you know you sent me to quite a few conferences out there and I got a chance to meet a lot of professionals in the industry. You know, of course everybody you know knew you from being in the industry, which helped open a lot of doors and got me a lot of training. And within that first year or so I got a lot of my credentials, which I already had as a professional speaker and trainer. But as far as learning the drug testing industry itself and that was coming up on 10 years ago or so and just from there it's evolved and I've gotten the certifications to be a train-the-trainer for pretty much everything related to drug and alcohol testing. I have spoken at conferences all over the country, I've written articles for a variety of different publications, done tons of videos, done different interviews, things along those lines, and that's kind of led us to where we are today and I've had a great opportunity to work with you and with a great team here at National Drug Screening.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, thanks, tom. Yeah, it's been quite the journey just about 10 years and you really immersed yourself into the industry. But tell me what's really big on the horizon for you in the coming year and into 2026.
Speaker 3:Well going into 2026 for me personally. I'm looking forward to building our team and continuing to expand that out there. But I'm also been serving on the board of directors for the Substance Abuse Program Administrators Association, one of the oldest existing drug and alcohol industry organization that's out there and I'm the incoming president. I'll be inducted as the new president of the organization the national organization in October out in Phoenix Arizona. So, looking forward to that, I've got a lot of plans on the horizon for that organization and things that we're going to be doing there, and that's a big part of that A lot of good things going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's big on the horizon and I'm glad you pointed that out. It was almost a trick question. But yeah, I'm excited for you too, because that's going to be really a good way to show your leadership. And you talk about meeting people in the industry. You know, I served as chairman of the board of the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association for four years and you meet so many people and so many new people, so it's going to be real exciting for you and I look forward to that for you also. But let's get into our topic, which is understanding drug test panels five panel, ten panel and beyond. Understanding drug test panels five panel, 10 panel and beyond. Tom, I asked you to put together some questions that you get from customers and prospects and people in the industry or team members, questions about drug testing panels. So let's go ahead and get started with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot of confusion around what panels are and what they mean and how that's understood by employers. So I think one of the key questions is understanding you know what drug testing, why drug testing panels are important to employers. You know what do they need to know about drug testing panels as it applies to them in the employment world?
Speaker 2:Good, good. So you know, for DOT regulated employers trucking companies, aviation, oil and gas pipeline companies, anybody regulated by the United States Department of Transportation it's really easy. Okay, because they are required to do the SAMHSA five-panel drug test. We'll talk more about what's in a five-panel drug test, so there's no variation there. But for all other employers that are non-regulated, not regulated by DOT, there's a host of different panels that they may do.
Speaker 2:So the company that's doing drug testing, as well as their vendor that's providing drug testing, really needs to know what they're testing for. A lot of times companies they don't even understand what they're testing for or don't even know what to test for. So it is important to understand panels. We have a standard five panel we'll talk about. We kind of have a standard 10 panel that we'll talk about. But other than that, you know, we could be adding fentanyl, we could be adding tramadol, we could be adding ketamine, we could be adding Tramadol, we could be adding ketamine. So it is really really important for both employers that are doing drug testing and service agents like ourselves that are selling drug testing to really understand what type of offerings we have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's interesting, you know, because we talk about panels and it's important to understand the drugs that you're testing for, like you mentioned. But I think there's also some confusion. What do they mean by drug test panel? What exactly is a panel in a drug test? How is that defined?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. So really defining a drug test panel is we're doing drug testing, we call it a panel, but what exactly is the panel? It's basically one or more drugs. Okay, is the panel? It's basically one or more drugs, okay, and the basic is a five panel and that kind of comes from SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse, mental Health Services Administration, as well as DOT, and state laws have followed. So we kind of have the basic common drugs that are in all panels almost marijuana, cocaine, opiates, which includes a whole host of stuff along with it, which we'll talk about. Amphetamines, which includes methamphetamine and ecstasy, and then also PCP or pancyclidine. So that's a five panel. There's a big difference between a five panel and a 10 panel and beyond the five panel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I guess to kind of add a little additional clarification to that. So a panel, is a panel a specific drug, or is it a category of drugs? Or how does that actually qualify?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's really not a specific drug, unless the panel only includes one drug which could, there could be a one panel drug for marijuana. It's not really a category of drugs because within different drugs there's a category, but then there's certain drugs within that drug category. So maybe to help make it a little bit clearer and cleaner, I'll talk about the five-panel. We'll talk about it in terms of the DOT five-panel, which we also call a DOT like panel. When we talk about a non DOT testing program, as I mentioned, we're talking about amphetamines, which includes methamphetamines and ecstasy. So we have a category. And then we have two other things within it.
Speaker 2:We're talking about cocaine, which is kind of a standalone marijuana, which is kind of a standalone marijuana, which is kind of a standalone pencyclodine or PCP, which I don't know that many people use that anymore, but they still come up with positives for PCP. That's why they keep it in the panel, in the standard panel. And then we talk about opioids, which includes codeine, morphine, heroin, plus what we call expanded opiates of hydrocodone, hydromorphone, oxycodone and oxymorphone. So we got what we call a five panel. It's five categories of drugs, but if you counted them and add them up, I count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Some people call it a 12. Some people call it an 8, 7. But it's really a five panel. It's five categories of specific drug metabolites.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's interesting to kind of think about it in that perspective. And I know you mentioned, like the DOT, which is only lab-based testing. So how do panels apply to like instant testing or to other specimen types, because I think the ones you know like DOT is right now is just urine, so how does that?
Speaker 2:affect those other specimen types and whether it's instant or lab-based. Yeah, so you got instant testing, which can be urine or oral fluid, and you've got hair testing, which is hair, but they can really have with hair. You're going to have the same panels more or less. You wouldn't have the DOT panel because you can't use hair for DOT. With instant testing it's a little bit different because when we test for opiates, for example, or amphetamines, for example, each metabolite is one drug in an instant test. So we could have a five panel drug test, that is, amphetamines, methamphetamines, cocaine, marijuana and PCP. Maybe no opioids, because we're counting amphetamines and methamphetamines as two. Typically, if opioids is on the panel it's going to pick up the codeine, morphine and heroin under opioids. But if you want the expanded opiates on the instant testing they're typically adding oxycodone.
Speaker 3:Well, you know. So there's a lot of different options out there, it seems like. So how does an employer really go about deciding, you know, which panel to use? Is it mandated? Is it a choice? Is it a combination of those things?
Speaker 2:So for DOT it's definitely mandated. We're definitely doing that DOT 5 panel. For non-DOT there's a couple of considerations. State laws is a consideration. Where do you operate and are there any laws that say what you need to do? And there might be a state law that says drug testing must abide by the DOT regulations and use the same panels. So that's the option there. You use the five panel. There may not be any state regulation or it may say you need to do more than the five panel. There may not be any state regulation or it may say you need to do more than the five panel.
Speaker 2:I believe there's one state, west Virginia, in the mining industry, where you have to do a nine panel. So I wanted to go back and circle back to where we talk about the standard five panel and then we might talk about what's commonly known as a 10 panel and it's kind of a standard. It's just evolved into being a standard and so we take that first five drugs that we talked about and we add five more, and those five more are barbiturates, benzodiazepines, methadone, propoxypene and methiqualine. Now having methiqualine on there is a little bit confusing, also because nobody's done quaaludes in probably 15 years, jesse. How long since you did them?
Speaker 1:Before my time, before your time.
Speaker 2:But, and so some employers or some labs actually are dropping the methaqualune. So we have a nine panel. So I'm aware of one state law that says you got to do a nine panel, okay. So then you have other considerations. Maybe the non-regulated employer has some type of contractual obligation to do drug testing because they do work for maybe a larger company and that larger company says, well, this is the panel we want you to do, so it could be based on a contractual obligation. Other than that, employers, typically they really don't know what to do.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the five panel is certainly an option because it's a standard and it's what's used in the transportation industries. But some companies have looked at well, people are abusing, you know, barbiturates and people are using Xanax, you know, when they're not supposed to be, and abusing benzodiazepines and maybe methadone users. So they want to go to an expanded panel, a 10 panel. It's without any regulation or contractual obligation. It's really kind of an employer preference. And today we may see people dropping marijuana from the panel because some companies are not looking to test for marijuana or there may be some restrictions in the state where they operate on marijuana testing and some companies might be looking to add maybe something like fentanyl, which, of course, as we know, has become a popular drug over the last five or six years, and in certain pockets of the country that it may be more widespread use of fentanyl.
Speaker 2:So, hey, maybe we should do that 10 panel and add fentanyl. Does that make it an 11 panel? Not really. I'd still call it a 10 panel plus fentanyl, because if you ask me for an 11, a 12, a 13, or a 14, I kind of know what the first 10 are, but I don't know what the next ones you want to add are. I don't know if it's fentanyl or mepridine or tramadol or ketamine. I don't know what you want to add unless you specifically tell me. So that's where panels can get confusing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and with all the different ones out there and different risk tolerances from companies, you know I imagine making that decision, you know, varies a good deal when there's not specific mandates for that, and one of the topics you touched on was marijuana. So how are employers handling marijuana in states where it's actually legal? I mean, how does that come into play and what steps are they taking regard to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it comes into play every day, every time the phone rings. It could be a question about that Again. For DOT it's kind of a non-issue. Marijuana is a prohibited substance. If you test positive for marijuana in a DOT-regulated drug testing program, it's a violation.
Speaker 2:Now for the non-regulated industries, there may be states that have some restrictions on marijuana. There may be states that favor employees doing what they want to do on their own time, so there may be laws that restrict it. In California you can't really use urine or hair for a marijuana drug test and take adverse action, so you're kind of limited to an oral fluid test which is testing the parent drug. But basically every employer in a state that has a medical marijuana law and or a recreational marijuana law, they need a written drug-free workplace policy that talks about marijuana. Are we going to test for it or we're not going to test for it? Are we going to offer any type of accommodation for a medical marijuana user or are we going to test for it? Are we going to offer any type of accommodation for a medical marijuana user or are we going to be strictly zero tolerance?
Speaker 2:Marijuana is prohibited. If you test positive, you have a violation. But are we going to terminate based on that, or maybe are we going to give a second chance based on that? So, with non-regulated employers, they have to be aware and get professional guidance as to what the laws in their state say, and they need professional guidance as to a well-crafted drug-free workplace policy that addresses marijuana.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I imagine there's a lot of confusion out there with different states and a variety of different laws, and probably employers also that have multiple states, so I imagine they have to have either different policies or additions for that. How would they handle it if they're in multiple states? Would that be subject to each state or the state of the parent company, or is it going to vary depending on the circumstances?
Speaker 2:the circumstances. Yeah, what we typically do, tom, is we look at the state where the company is located, where their corporate office is, where their main headquarters are, and we have a discussion with HR and safety and other thought leaders at the company and we determine the marijuana policy for their home state. Okay, then we look at what other states do they operate in and will that policy that we just developed for their home state still apply, or do we need a policy addendum for, let's say, there's seven other states they operate in and maybe a couple of them? It's not really good to test for marijuana, like in New York. You really can't. Okay, so there has to be a carve out, there has to be, like we call it, a state addendum for those particular extra states that says okay, in New York we're not going to test for marijuana at all.
Speaker 2:In California, we're going to use oral fluid for marijuana testing, so we're going to use oral fluid for all of our testing. To make it easy in California, in the state of Washington, as a similar law to California, but it only affects pre-employment testing. So in the state of Washington we might drop marijuana for pre-employment testing or we might only use oral fluid testing because using urine or hair, both in California and in the state of Washington, we're detecting that someone used marijuana, but maybe it was Friday night or Saturday night or Sunday and those states don't want us taking any adverse action against an employee that smoked pot on their own time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that makes sense, especially with all the changes that are out there. I think that's something that's constantly changing and you know, with the marijuana laws you definitely have to keep up with it. But you know, kind of keeping on our topic of focus, which is panels, have there been any major changes to actual panels that have happened either recently or maybe upcoming?
Speaker 2:Good question, tom. So if we go back almost 30 years, okay, when the federal government wrote their mandatory guidelines for workplace drug testing, which is the original document that lays out the foundation for drug testing in America okay, they developed the five panel drug test. But back then that five panel drug test was different than it is today and there's been several versions of it over the years and unfortunately the laboratories still have the old versions on hand. So it's like when you order a drug test you better be making sure you're ordering the most current version, because the original versions didn't have methamphetamine with the amphetamine. The original versions didn't have methamphetamine with the amphetamine, didn't have heroin with the opiates, didn't have the expanded opiates, the hydrocodones, the oxycodones, et cetera.
Speaker 2:So it's changed and we added heroin, we added expanded opiates, so we've had at least three different versions and you want to make sure that you know, because you got to know what you're testing for and you don't want to be surprised. So it is important that, yeah, there have been changes and very recently SAMHSA has added fentanyl to the required testing for federal employees. Employees of the federal government are now required for the five panel plus fentanyl. Now people will ask well, what about DOT? Well, dot normally adopts exactly what SAMHSA does and what SAMHSA says, but it takes DOT a little bit longer to adopt it because they have to put out a proposed regulation and they have to get comments from the public and from the industry and they have to evaluate those comments. And it could take a year before DOT even longer potentially for DOT to add fentanyl. But for employees of the federal government currently today we have fentanyl and for non-DOT employees they can certainly add fentanyl to their testing panel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so I know fentanyl has been around, you know, for a while for testing for non-regulated. So is it, is it, or is it not required yet for DOT?
Speaker 2:It is definitely not required for DOT and again, as I mentioned, it may take. It's going to take time, it may take a year, maybe longer. I don't have a crystal ball, but I know that in government and in DOT there's a process and those processes take time. And again, with DOT, they're going to have to put out a proposed rule change. They're going to have to get comments and give a comment period of time. They're going to have to put out a proposed rule change. They're going to have to get comments and give a comment period of time. They're going to have to evaluate those comments and then make their final decisions and then publish the rule. And then fentanyl would be required for DOT testing and, as that happens, we would likely see that employers that are non-regulated would follow through with now the new standard five-panel test, which would be the five-panel plus fentanyl.
Speaker 3:Excellent. And you know, with all the changes coming up, what else you know do you see on the horizon? I know you're really tapped into the things going on in the drug testing world. So what do you see? I know you don't have your crystal ball or your magic drug testing eight ball, but what do you see?
Speaker 2:I know you don't have your crystal ball or your magic drug testing eight ball, but what do you see coming up that might be of interest to our audience here?
Speaker 2:Sure, and you know the regulatory changes take time federal, dot, any state laws but in general we're going to see some new panels considered to be common okay, where multiple laboratories would say maybe this is the structure of a 12 panel. Currently today it's 5 and 10, because one lab may have a 12 and the next lab may have a 12, but it's different drugs. I think instant testing is growing, both urine and oral fluid, and there's a lot of customization that can be made on panels for instant or rapid testing and companies can pinpoint that these are the drugs that we want. And with urine, I believe it's like you can go up to about 14 panels. With oral fluid I'm not sure it's quite 14 yet so you can be testing for a lot of different metabolites of drugs and have customization readily available on instant testing. So I think more instant testing, more oral fluid testing, is kind of what I see to be on the horizon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think you know having the discussion about panels you know is important to understand that, especially if you're an employer out there and appreciate the insights you know that we that we have on that. You know, with panels you can test a lot of things. You know urine, like you said, it's been around for a long time a lot more things you can test with. I think we're starting to see more and more things with the oral fluid and with hair testing, although both those are more limited in the panels or the drugs they can test for at this point.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Good insight there. Tom, do you have any other thoughts or any other questions you have on this topic about drug testing panels, or experiences or questions that you've come across lately?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think a lot of people are confused about that. I think just the things you've talked about so far today really, you know, crystallize and clarify exactly what we mean by panels, because I know when we get calls, or our team takes calls from employers and individuals, they're very confused about what it actually means, what's included, what can be tested for. Also, what can be tested for with what specimen type.
Speaker 3:So, whether it's instant, whether it's lab based, whether it's hair, oral fluid, you know, or urine, those are all different things that come into play and I think, especially if it's an employer out there that's looking at these, you know making the best decision taking into account the state laws. You know making the best decision taking into account the state laws, the legal considerations that you brought up, as well as you know what panels make sense for them. And having a conversation with somebody who can make a good recommendation is something that I think is very important, because that way you can make a very informed decision and it does go into, you know, affects legal liability, affects your risk tolerance, all those kind of things too. So, understanding the panels that you're looking to test for, having somebody that can make those recommendations, I think is huge.
Speaker 2:Outstanding and Tom for our audience listeners. If they were to go to nationaldrugscreeningcom okay, how would they find out more about panels?
Speaker 3:Well, we have a great search tool. We always claim it's greater than Google in this regard because we know the information there is accurate. But there's a search icon right there on nationaldrugscreeningcom and, in addition to the menu items, you can simply type in the panels you're looking for. You can click on order a test. You can see some of the more common panels there and they're actually spelled out what drugs are in there. You can see some of the more common panels there, and they're actually spelled out what drugs are in there, and there's some drop-downs with information on the different specimen types as well as the panels available for them. So a lot of information there. The search is a great way to find that information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome. So a lot of information that we have on our website, nationaldrugscreeningcom. You can also go, and some of them are videos. When you go to some of them, those pages, you can also go to our YouTube channel, nationaldrugscreeningcom and type in panels under search and you'll find several videos that, tom, you and I have put together on drug testing panels.
Speaker 2:So hopefully this has been informative to our audience about drug testing panels, which is, you know, a list of drugs that we're testing for in a panel name, so five panel, 10 panel, and in some cases it's a 10 panel plus something else, plus fentanyl, plus tramadol, et cetera. So thanks again, tom. I appreciate you bringing these questions here. I am going to turn it over to our producer, jesse, to be able to give a shout out to our sponsor and to close out the show, but before I do that, I think I'm supposed to mention something like don't forget to like, subscribe, share with your friends, ring the bell, make comments and help us send your questions about updated topics or questions or comments about this topic. Jesse, did I do that right?
Speaker 1:You did perfect and you're getting better every episode.
Speaker 2:So awesome job.
Speaker 1:Joe? No, because it is important if people want to reach out and learn more, because I feel like a lot of these episodes, we're getting a lot of comments with pretty comprehensive questions, which we really enjoy, because people want to follow up, people want to learn more and you're creating curiosity with with some of these topics. So, of course, go ahead and reach out. I know, joe, you also have a forward-facing email or number. You want to put that out there?
Speaker 2:it's real simple. Joe at national drug screening calm. Yeah, just like the website put Joe in front of it, yeah, so if you or number, do you want to put that out there? It's real simple.
Speaker 1:Joe at NationalDrugScreeningcom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just like the website. Put Joe in front of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if you want you know like a super comprehensive answer to a question, then certainly reach out to Joe via his email. And once again, we want to thank Joe Riley and Associates for the sponsorship today Again for consulting for the drug testing industry. If you have any questions regarding that, if you need expert witness services, marketing, sales consultation, policy writing, new startup comprehensive training and consultation, as well as drug-free workplace trainings, reach out to Joe Riley and Associates today. And with that, good job, gentlemen. Thank you, jesse.
Speaker 2:Thanks much.