About 300,000 truck drivers in the United States would be removed from their positions if required to pass a hair drug test instead of a urinalysis, which might not be sufficient enough to catch those who use illicit drugs, according to a new report.
A study by professors at the University of Arkansas (UCA) completed over one year of research using hair and urine samples for drug testing and if the tests are racially biased. The Alliance for Driver Safety and Security, or The Trucking Alliance, paid for the research and was released in a 33-page report last month.
“Hair testing opponents argue that the test is biased against ethnic minority groups,” according to the report. “Comparing urine and hair pass/fail rates for various ethnic groups, our results indicate ethnic groups are significantly different irrespective of testing procedure. Factors other than testing method seem to underlie ethnic group pass/fail rate differences.”
