New pot legislatiion brings on talk of pilot pee in a cup

[cncpc]

Could be a lot of problems with this.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cannabi ... -1.4687200

[RICHARD FORE]

This is extremely bias. I bet Trudeau will be high as can be until he gets voted out in 2019 and will never have to piss in a cup.

[youhavecontrol]

We already have to pee in a cup for our medical. We already have piss tests at construction job sites. This is nothing new and should be expected, given the responsibility of hundreds of people's lives.

[No Smoke, No Fire]

We already have to pee in a cup for our medical. We already have piss tests at construction job sites. This is nothing new and should be expected, given the responsibility of hundreds of people's lives.

While I agree that drug testing in safety-sensitive positions isn’t the worst idea, pee tests don’t prove intoxication, just previous use. I personally don’t really see much of a problem with Joe having smoked a joint last week, just as I don’t care about that pint or two Bob drank last week. Also, the urine test at your medical isn’t screening for drugs...

My belief is that if urine screening for cannabis becomes federally mandated it will be challenged nine ways from Sunday in court. Now if a urine screening is replaced with some way to prove actual intoxication and not just previous use, that’s different.

[Noo]

Reminder to all the pot smoking pilots I know that you asked for this when you wished for legalization. Party's over now.

[leftoftrack]

Im not a pot smoker........what party?

[Heliian]

If only they had a pee test for flying skills.

[altiplano]

There are so many safety sensitive positions...

The day that everyone has to do it - and not just in this industry, I mean everyone - is the day I will not fight this infringement.

Anyone operating any vehicle or equipment, anyone with any responsibility for safety or decisions that affect others... police, judges, doctors, nurses, engineers, builders, electricians, I don't know... lots of tangents you can follow on the idea of what is safety sensitive.

Bottom line is that testing is overreaching where a problem doesn't exist, and the risk of testing errors (false positives) in tests ruining people is greater than the risk of the problem they're trying to prevent, which in our business happens to not even exist in a quantifiable amount.

[telex]

We already have to pee in a cup for our medical. We already have piss tests at construction job sites. This is nothing new and should be expected, given the responsibility of hundreds of people's lives.

When you pee in a cup for your medical do you know what the purpose of such is?

[roscoe]

First, I am not a pilot. That being said, here are a couple of experiences with the workplace drug testing that has been in force south of the border for more than 15 years.
1) I'm doing midnight shift. Son is long haul trucker, stopped at a weigh scale in Illinois. When asked for his paperwork, drivers licence, and medical card, can't find said medical card in the pile ( medical card is record of drug test program). Can't turn a wheel until card produced. Frantic call home (3 AM btw) card found after search of room. Mother puts on parka over her jammies and rushes over to Company HQ so dispatch can fax card to scale location. Stern warning issued and sent on his way, and nasty letter to company from Illinois Dept of Highways. It was -28C in YWG that night, Mother not impressed, his Boss even less..
2) Working Line Mtce as Crew Chief at what was then a major International airport (CYWG), Call from dispatch to go out to a Dash 8 from a feeder carrier of a major US airline that we provided on-call support. Snag is " Pressurization not functioning properly, entry door seal leaking badly" Eyeball the seal, and the sill area is loaded with ice, I tell the 4-stripe no worries, i'll clean it up and wipe it down with some isopropyl. 4 stripe says wait one, I have to call Maintenance control for authorization. OK it's your dime, I'm on the clock. Comes back with " is your drug testing program up to date?" Reply; "What drug testing program, this is Canada". Outcome; "get off the aircraft, you can't touch it". Pax are dumped in YWG and aircraft ferries empty back to whence it came.
These are just two examples of what can happen in the real world. Workplace drug testing in Transportation has been around for a long time, just not here, in such a wide spread and rigid manner, and it is going to become more prevalent as time goes by now that the weed thing is coming in. Glad I'm time X.

[altiplano]

When you pee in a cup for your medical do you know what the purpose of such is?

Check for diabetes.

[nothingbeatsflying]

I personally don’t really see much of a problem with Joe having smoked a joint last week, just as I don’t care about that pint or two Bob drank last week.

Disclaimer: I'm not a medical professional so this is based on me asking some docs and me parroting the reply as best as I can.

Alcohol clears the system much quicker than weed does.

One joint last week? Probably no biggie. One joint every day of Joe's week off? Well now THC is stored in his fat and will leech into his system when his metabolism burns that fat, for an unknown amount of time, and impact his cognitive abilities in an unknown way.

I know everyone loves to think that weed is safer than alcohol. But they really can't be compared at all. It depends on how much, how often, and varies from person to person.

So unfortunately the situation is far more nuanced than those who sit on the extremes of either side want to admit (like many other things in life I might add).

Personally, I am fine with piss testing for drugs. But I would hope that there could be a more accurate way of telling what amount has actually been in the system, rather than just "if" it has been in the system at all.

[AuxBatOn]

I personally don’t really see much of a problem with Joe having smoked a joint last week, just as I don’t care about that pint or two Bob drank last week. Also, the urine test at your medical isn’t screening for drugs...

THC is stored in fat for months after use. It is released when under stress. Does your stress level increase when you are dealing with an emergency?

[youhavecontrol]

We already have to pee in a cup for our medical. We already have piss tests at construction job sites. This is nothing new and should be expected, given the responsibility of hundreds of people's lives.

When you pee in a cup for your medical do you know what the purpose of such is?

I've never really cared exactly what it's for, but I know it tells a lot about a person's kidney condition and overall health. I always imagined they would test a whole host of things.. I don't really know. If someone asks for a sample of my piss, I just imagine that it's for a good enough reason to actually WANT a sample of my piss. If they want to add drug tests to that list, I'm ok with that 100%.

[trey kule]

To all the pot smokers who say that one last week is no biggie.

Talk to your medical examiner. If you test positive you are in for a world of hurt.
No rationalization is going to help.

Again. Dont believe me. Talk to your medical examiner about what will happen if you test positive.

It must be a great high to risk your entire career on using it.

[lownslow]

If only they had a pee test for flying skills.

Accuracy is a flying skill.

[confusedalot]

I gotta laugh. Everybody has their shorts twisted around their private parts because of a dried up frikin plant. You would think we are in 17th century Saudi Arabia, where they still chop hands off for stealing a loaf of bread. The root crime of the bread stealers is the horrible condition of hunger.

Is candistan becoming like the kingdom??? I'm a little scared of the holier than thou marginal mall cops that will impose life sentences for an inflated issue.

Booze will certainly be out of your system pretty quick, maybe pot takes longer. If you had a joint 24 hours ago, do you suddenly become non-functional? I don't know, but I doubt it.

This is going to be interesting; society will accept dried up green leaves as OK, yet, they will be making all kinds of exceptions to who can or cannot use it.

Pilot's won't
Judges will

Bus drivers won't
Surgeons will

Walmart employees won't
Cops will.

[No Smoke, No Fire]

To all the pot smokers who say that one last week is no biggie.

Talk to your medical examiner. If you test positive you are in for a world of hurt.
No rationalization is going to help.

Again. Dont believe me. Talk to your medical examiner about what will happen if you test positive.

It must be a great high to risk your entire career on using it.

I won’t believe you, because currently your medical examiner does not do a drug screen on your urine sample...

I wasn’t trying make a rationalization about anything, just that I personally don’t really care if someone partakes occasionally on their time away from flying. What I was more intending to highlight is that this is going to create a sticky legal situation that I believe will play out repeatedly in courtrooms in this country if the federal government mandates cannabis drug screening for pilots.

[HiFlyChick]

To all the pot smokers who say that one last week is no biggie.

Talk to your medical examiner. If you test positive you are in for a world of hurt.
No rationalization is going to help.

Again. Dont believe me. Talk to your medical examiner about what will happen if you test positive.

It must be a great high to risk your entire career on using it.

I won’t believe you, because currently your medical examiner does not do a drug screen on your urine sample...

I wasn’t trying make a rationalization about anything, just that I personally don’t really care if someone partakes occasionally on their time away from flying. What I was more intending to highlight is that this is going to create a sticky legal situation that I believe will play out repeatedly in courtrooms in this country if the federal government mandates cannabis drug screening for pilots.

Believe it - I went to a recent safety seminar in Summerside, PEI, where one of he speakers was the RAMO, Dr Heather Langille. In the Q & A period following, we had a long discussion about pot smoking. She said that there were some conclusive studies that not only does it stay in your system for 30 days, but when they tested frequent users who quit cold turkey, each week their performance tests improved from the previous one. Her summary was, pick which you want to do - fly or use pot. Period. No AND, just OR

[No Smoke, No Fire]

To all the pot smokers who say that one last week is no biggie.

Talk to your medical examiner. If you test positive you are in for a world of hurt.
No rationalization is going to help.

Again. Dont believe me. Talk to your medical examiner about what will happen if you test positive.

It must be a great high to risk your entire career on using it.

I won’t believe you, because currently your medical examiner does not do a drug screen on your urine sample...

I wasn’t trying make a rationalization about anything, just that I personally don’t really care if someone partakes occasionally on their time away from flying. What I was more intending to highlight is that this is going to create a sticky legal situation that I believe will play out repeatedly in courtrooms in this country if the federal government mandates cannabis drug screening for pilots.

Believe it - I went to a recent safety seminar in Summerside, PEI, where one of he speakers was the RAMO, Dr Heather Langille. In the Q & A period following, we had a long discussion about pot smoking. She said that there were some conclusive studies that not only does it stay in your system for 30 days, but when they tested frequent users who quit cold turkey, each week their performance tests improved from the previous one. Her summary was, pick which you want to do - fly or use pot. Period. No AND, just OR

I don’t doubt that there would be some sort of long term effect. But if you’re concerned about that, then where is your concern for the majority of us who consume alcohol while not on the job? Alcohol, especially when consumed chronically, has very serious side effects. There have been high profile incidents recently concerning pilots attempting to fly intoxicated. Where’s your outrage at the lack of persistent mandatory alcohol and alcohol abuse screenings?