New Rules Due for Drug Urinalyses on U.S. Workers

The government, trying to prevent cheating on federal employees’ drug tests, will announce guidelines that include rigid monitoring and testing of the temperatures of urine samples.

President Reagan ordered testing of designated civil servants in sensitive positions last fall. The program has been delayed while the Health and Human Services Department resolves technical details to guard against fraud and to protect workers from false test results.

The guidelines, to be announced today, will require that monitors be stationed inside restrooms--but outside toilet stalls--while urine samples are being produced.

In addition, the temperature of each sample will be taken within four minutes, to ascertain its authenticity. Internal body temperature is 98.6 degrees F., and skin temperature normally is lower. An attempt to cheat on the test by giving a substitute specimen, even one that had been carried next to the skin, presumably would be detected by the temperature test.

Under the guidelines, which have been under development for more than five months, the employee would not be watched while producing the urine sample.

The Office of Personnel Management laid the groundwork for drug testing in guidelines announced in November, which gave agency heads broad discretion in deciding which holders of sensitive positions should be tested.

Under those guidelines, federal workers in sensitive positions may be fired, in extreme cases, for a single instance of illegal drug use, and must be dismissed for a second offense. The agency estimates that few workers will be tested, however.