An anonymous reader sent this in for posting.
--Gussie
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I've been looking at the Chacon story over breakfast. I don't know how familiar you are with the drug scene, but the quantity involved in this case is significant. He was caught with over an ounce so he's likely not just a dealer, his customers were almost certainly lower level dealers. I've also seen comments that since he was a dealer he probably didn't use it himself. That's almost certainly not true. The 1.3 grams found at his home was probably his personal supply and probably received as payment for his part in the transaction (delivery and collecting money). For him to have escaped detection by urinalysis for very long would call into question the person who runs the testing program at TA-55. If he is giving people advance warning of upcoming drug tests a cocaine user could probably pass urinalysis for his entire career. Even without warning, if there is no observer during specimen collection the person being tested can cheat and avoid detection. Given the lax policy at TA-55 regarding detection of contamination uptake (self-administered nasal swabs), it wouldn't surprise me to hear that they have no observers during specimen collection. Garbage in, garbage out.
Not familiar with the drug scene, but what's the chance this guy rolls over and starts talking about dealers and buyers?
ReplyDeleteI think all of the testing is run out of S-6. The peemobile says Personal Security on the side.
ReplyDeleteHow many others at TA 55 are using drugs that we don't know about? Maybe Mr. Chacon could enlighten us?????
ReplyDeleteQuestion for Al Zelicoff, or someone similarly knowledgable: If someone does cocaine at 6pm on the way back home, for example, will it still show up in the pee-test next morning at 10am?
ReplyDeleteanswer to 4:41 PM. yes, it will, but it would be safe to snort your nose off on a 4 day weekend! See this table for wiki's answer about various detection times.
ReplyDeleteWhat's frustrating to me about this table is that marijuana has the longest detection window which suggests that these tests (at LANL and elsewhere) will push people from what I consider to be the safest drug of all to the more dangerous ones.
10:18 Your thoughts are refreshing. Most on this blog seem to think that drug use at LANL doesn't exist. Your fear is that those on illegal marijauna might choose to use something heavier in order to reduce the chance of being positive during drug testing. Hmmmm, yet many oppose drug testing, even if applied to all on a random basis. Very thought provoking.
ReplyDeleteThe number of Libertarians at LANL (sounds like a great name for a support group, doesn't it?) is apparently vanishingly small. Maybe "John" and I are the only ones ...
ReplyDelete-Brad
Sorry Brad,
ReplyDeleteI'm not a libertarian but if I had to pick from the Republicans, I'd definitely take Ron Paul! But if I had to pick from the Dems, I'd take Kucinich. :)
I love the libertarian philosophy for all the social issues, but I don't trust the free market for the economic ones.
However, I am friends with a LANL liberterian who has some recent posts in the official LANL newsletter's Readers' Forum protesting the random testing on Constitutional grounds. So, you're not alone at least! Hopefully, you can find a healthy contingent of libertarians for your support group and I can find some hippies for mine. More importantly though, I'm just happy to find anyone willing to dialogue; willing to consider opposing ideas and willing to actually change their minds on occasion. There's a disappointing number of people at LANL, in these blogs, and everywhere in our country who just aren't listening to each other. Debate has been lost, replaced by ad hominem attacks, and soundbites.
The Libertarian party always sounds good to me until I realize that if they ever won at the national lavel, LANL would be shut down. I have a strong sense of self preservation. Even the Dems are beginning to to appear to me as if they are bad news for anyone holding a job at LANL.
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