New research is suggesting that a record number of U.S. workers are cheating on employer-enforced drug tests by tampering with urine samples to evade detection.
The research comes from Quest Diagnostics, a national drug testing company, which found that the percentage of those faking the results increased more than six-fold in 2023 compared to 2022.
Researchers shared that the increase comes as workers look to hide their drug use as the legal environment, social norms, and employer policies around certain drugs continue to change.
Quest Diagnostics shared that the main purpose for employer-mandated drug tests is to ensure a safe workplace, as recreational drug use, while legal, can still affect an employee’s productivity.
“Workforce drug testing exists because it’s intended as a deterrence mechanism,” Dr. Suhash Harwani, senior director of science for workforce health solutions at Quest, told CBS News. “That’s why it was founded — to ensure workplace safety.”
Still, the company shared that its analysis of lab data found that the drug positivity rate for the overall U.S. workforce remained at a record high of 4.6%.
So how are they doing it?
In a statement, Harwani shared that employers are substituting their urine specimens by replacing them with synthetic formulas or animal urine, or they are submitting invalid specimens.
Both suggest tampering in order to conceal a potentially positive sample, the company shared.
“Given the growing acceptance and use of some drugs, particularly marijuana, it may be unsurprising that some people feel it necessary to try and cheat a drug test,” Harwani said in a statement. “It is possible that our society’s normalization of drug use is fostering environments in which some employees feel it is acceptable to use such drugs without truly understanding the impact they have on workplace safety.”
With 24 states having passed legislation to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, the number of those using the drug is expected to grow.
Harwani says that if the trend continues, different methods for drug testing may be used, doing away with urine testing altogether, instead opting for oral or other forms of testing.