Are You Drug Free?

There are many people who should not be on the roadways and we have met them all. They never signal, can barely see over the steering wheel, or just aren’t sharp enough to know how to follow along with traffic. We see those individuals every day and they are no surprise. Then we have the folks on the other end of the spectrum, they drink too much, are high on drugs, and are always in trouble. Again we hope these people don’t get on the road as when they do damage it is very serious, but what about those people in between, you may even be one of them and not realize it. Those are the people that drink occasionally, are recreational drug users and so on. These are the people that are drug free most of the time except they have a drag of that funny cigarette at the Tuesday night hockey game, or they play hockey or softball on Sunday mornings with the team, go for chicken wings and a beer and then leave for work later that day. We have all done it and for the most part there is nothing wrong with it.

What we usually forget is that the drugs or alcohol stay in the system far longer than many of us realize. I went on the internet to get some background information for this article and was surprised by what I learned. A website named http://www.passyourdrugtest.com had some alarming statistics. Alcohol can stay in your system for a very long time. Most of us think of the 12 hour rule, but that is just for the blood work. It can stay in a urine test for up to 3-5 days, in your saliva for 1-5 days, and in your hair samples for up to 90 days. Marijuana is even worse, if you use it 1 time it will last up to 5-8 days in your system. Use it 2-4 times per month and it will last 11-18 days in your system.

Now I am certainly not saying that all people that play sports are bad but many times these type of things are going on in dressing rooms and cars around the game. I like my beer like anything else but many of us don’t understand the time that these things stay in your system. With random drug testing around you certainly don’t want to get caught for fun that you had a week ago. Being a professional driver is not only being aware of the past and present actions, but those that may get you in trouble in the future.

About the Author
Bruce Outridge is a transportation consultant and author of the book Running By The Mile and Driven to Drive. For more information visit http://www.outridgeenterprises.ca