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From: Robert Swotinsky MD
Date: 25 Dec 2004
Time: 04:44:57 -0800
Remote Name: 68.166.234.169
To restate the situation: Someone on parole submitted a dilute specimen. He (or she) told you he may be re-jailed because his specimen was dilute.
Your role is unclear: Who is asking you to help educate the officers about the dilution issue? The guy on parole, someone from the courts, or an outside firm that's doing the tests for the courts? If it's the guy on parole, communication with the court folks may be problematic, since they're not asking for your help and may see your intervention as unhelpful. If, however, the judicial system is asking for your opinion about whether or not to take action on dilute specimens, you'll have an easier time communicating with them that dilute urine specimens do not automatically mean drug abuse. For example, data published by SAMHSA in 1993 indicated that 7.6 percent of urine specimens submitted for DOT drug testing met dilute criteria, and ten percent of dilute specimens contained drug/metabolite concentrations below the cutoffs and at or above the limits of detection. Ninety percent of dilute specimens were drug-free to the limit of detection. So, most dilutes are produced by people who would not have otherwise tested positive.
As with most things where there's a conflict and an outsider is asked to get involved, it's incumbent on the outsider to verify the facts before reaching any conclusion(s). The facts here would include the actual test result (was it dilute or substituted?), the policy that the guy on parole agreed to, the nature of the action that is being taken against him, his opportunity for appeal, etc.
I believe parole is a privilege and not a right. (An attorney could verify this. I'm not an attorney.) The judicial system may feel they can revoke parole for no cause or little cause, such as a dilute specimen. Contrast this to testing of workers without cause, where the tests infringe on workers' rights to some extent, and efforts are made to minimize their intrusiveness. In a workplace testing, performing a drug test and then taking disciplinary action based on a dilute finding amounts to taking disciplinary action without a good reason, and this is clearly wrong.