School Fleet Street Features Dawn Dregier And Karen Joyce

Baltimore, Maryland October, 2010 – Dawn Dregier, President and Karen Joyce, VP of Clinical Services, of SRS, LLC also known as SAP Referral Services, LLC, were featured in School Fleet Street’s October publication in an article entitled Proactive Employers Keep Operations Substance-Free.

Officials at MCAS and Beach Transportation review their substance abuse policies with all employees. Karen Joyce, clinical director at SAP (Substance Abuse Professional) Referral Services LLC in Baltimore, says  sharing this kind of information and reviewing what’s expected of employees is essential to establishing a drug-free workplace.

Also, information should be provided on how substances affect a person’s ability to perform his or her job. This is true of prescription and over-the-counter medication as well as alcohol and illicit drugs.

“If someone’s taking a sleep aid or medication for a cough or pain, he or she can be fatigued and have a slow response time,” Joyce says. “When medication is taken and the time that the person is expected to start working must be taken into consideration.”

Karen shared that “The most visual indicator of substance use or abuse is changes in a person’s usual behavior, including changes in appearance and job performance.”

While the DOT’s regulations are designed to ensure that commercial motor vehicle drivers work safely, Dawn Dregier, president and CEO of SAP Referral Services LLC, says there is a weakness in drug testing at the pre-employment level that enables substance abusers to continue operating commercial vehicles.

She says that if an individual applies to a company and fails a pre-employment drug test, then applies at another company and tests clean, there is no way for the second company to know that the person failed the test for the first company.

“The majority of states have no drug and alcohol reporting responsibilities, and there’s no tracking system at the federal level, so there’s no way to catch these people,” Dregier says.

(Eight states — Arkansas, California, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas and Washington — require reporting in some capacity.)

Another factor that is contributing to this problem stems from an error on the part of some employers.

“Anytime anyone applies for a safety-sensitive position like a school bus driver, the DOT requires that the employer, prior to hiring the person, send out a 49 CFR Part 40 drug and alcohol testing release of information form to all of the applicant’s employers from the last three years to request disclosure of prior drug and alcohol violations. Some employers do not do this, and it’s allowing for another loophole,” Dregier says.

Dregier also notes that employers are obligated under federal guidelines to provide individuals, whether they’re employees or applicants, with resources to access DOT-qualified substance abuse professionals if they test positive for drugs or alcohol or refuse to submit to a test.

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