A national database of truck drivers who have failed drug or alcohol tests, or refused to take them, will soon be a reality.

That’s according to Juan Moya, Program Manager for the Drug and Alcohol Program of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, who spoke this week at a conference of the Substance Abuse Program Administrators Association. Mr. Moya said that the ...

Well, maybe not light reading, but good reading about good news that you won't want to miss! Here are our bulletins and other publications from the last week, in case you missed them:

*Heather Owen is already shooting off Fourth of July fireworks at the FOCUS women's leadership blog because our firm was named this week by the National Law Journal as the fourth best law firm in the ...

The U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration of the Department of Transportation announced yesterday that it is reducing by half the minimum percentage of drivers who must be randomly tested for controlled substances.

The change will take effect January 1.

Currently, employers are required to test at least 50 percent of their average number of commercial motor vehicle ...

What effect are liberalized marijuana laws having on employer drug policies?

Maybe not as much as you'd think.

The Society for Human Resources Management just came out with a survey of employer marijuana policies in states that have legalized it in some degree. Here are some highlights from the SHRM study:

*Of 224 employers who have operations in jurisdictions that have legalized ...

In California, marijuana has gone from being an illegal drug to being big business.

Last week Governor Jerry Brown signed into law three pieces of legislation (AB 243, AB 266, and SB 643) aimed at regulating the $1.3 billion medical marijuana industry in the state. The legislation, collectively called the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act, will take effect January ...

Scary. Did you know that you could have workers' compensation liability for your employee's addiction to pain killers, or even an overdose, if the pain killers were being taken because of a workplace injury? Here's an eye-opening guide for employers from the National Safety Council, via Bloomberg BNA.

Is that "random" drug test selection really random?

Many employers -- particularly, those in the transportation industry -- use third party vendors to do the random selections for federally mandated drug and alcohol tests. I think it's a great idea, because it prevents employees from claiming that they were selected for "random" testing in a not-very-random process.

Generally ...

Where are we these days with respect to mind-altering substances and the workplace? Here's the latest, with the "substances" discussed in alphabetical order. This blog post is guaranteed accurate™ for at least the next five minutes.

ALCOHOL. Alcohol is legal, which means that it is generally recognized as the most abused of substances. Employers can prohibit its use in the ...

Last October, I posted about a consent decree entered into between Wal-Mart and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in which Wal-Mart agreed to pay $72,500 to candidate for a store job in Maryland whose offer was withdrawn because she couldn’t undergo a urine test for drugs.

The candidate had end-stage renal disease.

Now, Kmart has been hit, too, in a case involving almost ...

By David Phippen of our Metro D.C. Office.

While the year is still young, here are 15 New Year's resolutions that employers may want to make: