Makers of drug-test fakes silent before U.S. panel
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Marketers of detoxifying drinks, prosthetic penises and other products to thwart drug tests refused to answer questions on Tuesday from U.S. lawmakers threatening legislation to crack down on an industry that investigators said is booming on the Internet.
Owners of three companies, including one that sells a fake penis called “The Whizzinator,” appeared at a congressional hearing under subpoena but exercised their constitutional right not to testify.
Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton stressed the executives still must respond to requests to supply congressional investigators with documents about the business.
“We will get the facts. Just understand that,” Barton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told the executives.
Barton said lawmakers would work to pass legislation this year to curtail sales of products that help illegal drug users pass urine, blood, saliva or hair tests. Lawmakers said they were outraged by marketers’ brazen claims to help people hide use of cocaine, marijuana or other substances.
“There is absolutely no public good that can be derived from this activity,” said Rep. Charles Bass, a New Hampshire Republican.
One executive who declined to testify was Dennis Catalano, president of Puck Technology of Signal Hill, California - the maker of The Whizzinator, a prosthetic penis that sells for $150 and promises to fool witnesses of drug tests.
The other officials were Michael Fichera, owner of Health Choice of New York, and Matt Stephens, president of Spectrum Labs. Both companies offer products to help subvert drug tests, lawmakers said.
Hundreds of such products, with names like “Urine Luck,” are easily available via the Internet and in some health-food stores, investigators from the Government Accountability Office told the panel. The offerings include urine additives to mask drug use and drinks to eliminate toxins. Some sell for as little as $30.
“The sheer number of these products, and the ease with which they are marketed through the Internet, present formidable obstacles,” Robert Cramer, the GAO’s managing director of special investigations, told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing.
Airline pilots, school-bus drivers, nuclear plant workers and others in positions dealing with national security or public safety are subject to drug tests, often at random.
“Unfortunately, there were unknown numbers of successfully adulterated specimens that went through our system” because many of the products work, said Robert Stephenson, director of workplace programs at the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Laboratories can detect some of the chemicals used to mask traces of illegal drugs, but authorities face a “never-ending cat-and-mouse chase” as the products are updated, Stephenson said.
“This represents a potential threat to our national security and public safety,” he said.
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