Fitness for duty in the Nuclear Power Industry. Annual summary of program performance reports CY 1993

This report summarizes the data from the semiannual reports on fitness-for-duty programs submitted to the NRC by utilities for two reporting periods: January 1 through June 30, 1993, and July 1 through December 31, 1993. During 1993, licensees reported that they had conducted 242,966 tests for the presence of illegal drugs and alcohol. Of these tests, 1,512 (.62%) were confirmed positive. Positive test results varied by category of test and category of worker. The majority of positive test results (952) were obtained through pre-access testing. Of tests conducted on workers having access to the protected area, there were 341 positive tests from random testing and 163 positive tests from for-cause testing. Follow-up testing of workers who had previously tested positive resulted in 56 positive tests. For-cause testing resulted in the highest percentage of positive tests; about 22 percent of for-cause tests were positive. This compares with a positive test rate of 1.04 percent of pre-access tests and .23 percent of random tests. Positive test rates also varied by category of worker. When all types of tests are combined (pre-access, random, for-cause, and follow-up testing), short-term contractor personnel had the highest positive test rate at.97 percent. Licensee employees and long-term contractorsmore » had lower combined positive test rates (.25% and .21%, respectively). Of the substances tested, marijuana was responsible for the highest percentage of positive test results (49.56%), followed by cocaine (23.41 %) and alcohol (22.65%).« less