Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 11, 1990                   TAG: 9007110128
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

TESTS FIND LESS DRUG USE AT WORK

SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories said the number of workers and job applicants who tested positive had fallen from 18 percent to 13.8 percent in three years.

Drug experts, however, said the figure remained too high.

"That's still three out of every 20 workers," said John Tysse, a Washington labor lawyer who specializes in cases involving drug use in the workplace.

Ben Banta, a spokesman for U.S. drug policy director William Bennett, said SmithKline's reported decline is still "unacceptably high" and probably indicates that drug testing is deterring Americans from using drugs before or during work.

SmithKline said that of the 1 million workers and job applicants it has tested in the first six months of 1990, 13.8 percent tested positive for drug use. Of a similar number tested during all of 1987, SmithKline found that 18.1 percent tested positive.

In separate tests of about 65,000 workers in "safety sensitive" transportation jobs, 3.1 percent tested positive, the Philadelphia-area company said.

The results reflect findings of tests conducted over the past six months since the federal government began requiring testing of airline and railroad employees, bus drivers and others in the transportation industry.

Transportation Department spokesman Bob Marx said random drug tests of agency employees in safety-sensitive jobs found that less than 1 percent had tested positive. After medical review, about half of those who test positive are found to have legitimate reasons, such as use of prescription drugs.

SmithKline's figures did not include post-medical review figures.

John Mazor, a spokesman for the 40,000-member Air Line Pilots Association, noted that the company had not broken down transportation employees into pilots, air traffic controllers, mechanics and other jobs. He predicted there would be widely varying drug use among job categories in the industry.

The pilot's association has filed one of about 20 lawsuits challenging the federal government's drug-testing requirements.

According to SmithKline Beecham, workers in all industries who tested positive were found most frequently to be using cocaine or marijuana, the company said.