LEGAL ARTICLES
Disclaimer: The following article is provided for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as actual legal advice nor take the place of legal counsel.
What Does A Positive Urinalysis Mean?
It
happens all too often - you are told that your lucky number came
up once again and you have to provide a urine sample. No problem
you say, you do not use drugs, so there is nothing to worry about.
Well, not really!
As much as all military personnel may want to believe that only drug users can pop positive on drug tests, that is simply incorrect. Lets take the case of a hypothetical First Class (we will refer to him as John) with 12 years of outstanding service. Assume for purposes of this article that John is assigned to a shore based command and is NOT a drug user. John provided his sample during a random sweep, something he has done many times over the years. He goes into the collection sight and from his perspective, it is just another urinalysis. He provides a sample with not even a thought of there being any problem, but two weeks later he is called into the Master Chief’s office, read his rights under Art. 31 UCMJ and advised that his urine specimen has come back positive for cocaine at 2,405 ng/ml. The Master Chief explains the cut off is 100 ng/ml and he wants some answers NOW! If John is smart, he will invoke his right to remain silent and will not say anything.
The command has an obligation to take action against John under the Navy’s Zero Tolerance program – that action can be judicial (Court –Martial) or non-judicial and administrative in nature. In most cases, NJP (Captains Mast) will be offered. Since John is assigned to a shore command, he has the right to refuse NJP and demand trial by Court-Martial. Assume for this article that John does refuse Mast. The command now has to decide whether it is going to take John to a Court-Martial, or directly to an administrative separation board. The procedures are markedly differently, but in many respects, John faces the same hurdles. First off, the vast majority of the people that will be involved in John’s case will honestly believe that he is a drug user as a result of the urinalysis. We do not have the time to discuss in this article all the procedures involved in an administrative separation board or a Court-Martial. However, I want to discuss with you an issue that frequently arises - that of unknowing ingestion.
Many people will scoff at the suggesting of unknowing ingestion of drugs. I have had many board or Courts-Martial members tell me during the member’s selection process (voir dire) that they could never come up positive on a urinalysis because they do not use drugs. However, expert witnesses from any DoD drug-screening laboratory will readily acknowledge under oath that cocaine can be unknowingly ingested in a drink - beer, soda, coffee or for that matter, water. Remember, the Master Chief told John how the cut off level for cocaine (actually they test for the metabolite of cocaine, known as benzoylecgonine [BZE]) was 100, and John popped for 2,405 ng/ml. One may think John has a very high amount of cocaine in his system because his result is 24 times the cut off. Once again, the lab experts will contradict that contention and will readily acknowledge it is certainly possible for a person to unknowingly ingest cocaine in a drink and subsequently provide a urine sample with an amount of 2,405 ng/ml.
The lab experts will explain that since cocaine is soluble in water, a person could easily consume a beverage that a very small amount of cocaine had been added to and that the person may have no way of knowing that he/she had ingested cocaine. If a urinalysis sample was provided within a couple days of the ingestion, a positive urinalysis will result. Cocaine does not have a taste and does not produce any noticeable color changes to liquid. Psychological and physiological effects of cocaine can be variable from one individual to another and the intensity of effects, if any, will be contingent upon the amount and purity of cocaine consumed. If cocaine is orally ingested, it has to pass through the person’s digestive system before it gets into his/her bloodstream, which means that a significant period of time (1-2 hours) will pass before any effects would be felt at all, even with a high quantity of ingestion.
What this tells us is that any person could actually have cocaine in his/her system when ordered to provide a urine sample and not know it – even our outstanding First Class Petty Officer who does not use drugs. What all this means is that while the urinalysis system frequently does detect the drug abuser, it can also wrongfully ensnarl even an outstanding First Class Petty Officer, just like John or any one else, regardless of rank. For John, what is ahead of him is frightening. After he refuses Mast, he will go to his administrative separation board and tell the board members he did not knowingly use cocaine. No matter what he says, or what evidence of his outstanding military career he presents, the Recorder for the board will most likely accuse John of lying and call him a drug user. The Recorder’s argument may be “he’s an outstanding sailor that made a mistake.” But John, a man who is an outstanding sailor, has NOT made a mistake. He never used cocaine, but his Navy career very well could be all over because of the positive urinalysis.