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August 4, 2005
Lawsuit challenges drug tests
Yawu Miller
Initially Shawn Harris thought he had received
a prank call in December of 2002 when Psychemedics informed him
of the results of a drug test.
“I said, ‘give me your number and I’ll call
you back,” he recalls.
He did call back and his skepticism turned to shock.
“I was dumbfounded,” he says. “They said I had
tested positive for cocaine.”
Harris, who has undergone drug testing for years, first in the
U.S. Army and Army reserve, and then as a police officer, says
he has never even smoked a cigarette.
But when his test results came back positive, he was faced with
a difficult choice: either admit to drug use and undergo a 40-day
suspension, drug counseling and random drug testing, or lose his
job.
He chose not to sign the papers and was promptly fired.
Now Harris and six other plaintiffs are suing the Boston Police
Department, claiming the drug test administered by Psychemedics
is inaccurate.
Each of the seven plaintiffs in the case had passed drug tests
in previous years. None of them had ever been disciplined for
drug abuse-related offenses. Each of them passed drug tests administered
by other firms after receiving the results of their tests from
Psychemedics.
According to the complaint, two of the plaintiffs went to Psychemedics
the day they received their positive results, retested and received
negative test results.
“If the test is an accurate test, why were there two different
results in the same day?” questioned Lawyer’s Committee
for Civil Rights attorney Nadine Cohen.
Shortly after the officers received their second set of results
from Psychemedics, the firm stopped taking walk-in appointments,
according to Cohen.
Harris instead obtained a referral from his HMO to Quest Diagnostics.
There he underwent blood, urine and hair testing, all of which
came back negative.
The Police Department’s Media Relations office declined
to comment on the Harris’ allegations, citing pending litigation.
The department began its hair testing policy in 1999, working
exclusively with Psychemedics. The firm requires officers to give
a small sample of hair, usually taken from the head.
The hairs are delivered to a lab and subjected to six separate
washes. The last wash is then analyzed to test for external contaminants.
Then the hair is tested both for drugs and for evidence that the
drugs have been metabolized in the body.
Psychemedics Senior Vice President Bill Thistle said the tests
are fool-proof.
“We’ve been doing this since 1987,” he said.
We do it for thousands of corporations. We’ve been upheld
in federal and state courts on issues of bias in the past.”
The Police Department tests for cocaine, opiates, marijuanna,
PCP and amphetamines. None of the officers tested positive for
any other drugs.
While the seven plaintiffs denied using drugs, many other black
officers have opted to sign the Police Department statement admitting
to drug use, according to Angela Williams-Mitchell, president
of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers.
“People have been on the job for 15 or 20 years,”
she said. They have children in college. They have families to
support. They’re single parents. They stand to lose everything
and they can’t afford to.”
Mitchell says MAMLEO has asked O’Toole to consider dropping
the hair test, citing widespread beliefs that the practice tends
to work against African Americans. O’Toole, however, stands
by the test.
Harris, who received a Medal of Honor for bravery during a gunfight
in Dorchester, chose to fight the charge, but says the experience
has been devastating.
“It’s been a nightmare,” he said. “This
was a career for me, something I envisioned doing for the next
30 years. I’ve never even smoked a cigarette. People who
know me laughed when they heard this.”
The suit seeks reinstatement for Harris and the other six defendants,
as well as back pay, unspecified damages, seniority and other
lost benefits.
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