Alaska Passes Bill Allowing Employers to Use Saliva for Drug and Alcohol Testing
On May 13, 2024, the Alaska Legislature passed Senate Bill 196 (SB 196) which adds saliva testing to the state’s “safe harbor” laws for drug and alcohol testing by Alaska employers and allows employers to use saliva for drug and alcohol testing, according to a report from the Alaska Beacon. The bill will be sent to Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy for his consideration.
“Alaska’s safe-harbor laws, which shield employers from legal claims related to drug and alcohol testing, don’t currently include saliva testing. Testifying in support of the bill, representatives of the Alaska Power Association wrote that saliva testing is absent from Alaska’s safe-harbor laws because they were written before saliva testing became common,” the Beacon reported.
“Saliva testing has grown more common nationally amid advances in technology and since the legalization of recreational cannabis in many states. THC, the principal psychoactive chemical in cannabis, isn’t detectable by a standard breathalyzer, and THC can linger in blood and urine for weeks, making those testing methods a poor judge of intoxication,” the Beacon reported.
On May 2, 2023, a final rule on “Procedures for Transportation Workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing Programs: Addition of Oral Fluid Specimen Testing for Drugs” was published in the Federal Register that “amends the U.S. Department of Transportation’s regulated industry drug testing program to include oral fluid testing.” This final rule took effect on June 1, 2023.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) agencies that published the final rule in the Federal Register regarding oral fluid testing were the Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA).
When the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a final rule establishing the “Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs using Oral Fluid (OFMG)” in 2019, it opened oral fluid testing to Federal agencies as an alternate methodology to choose and not as a replacement for urine drug testing. Similarly, the DOT has agreed.
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