Democrats press Trump to require 👍 opioid testing for transportation 🚚 workers

Democrats are pressing the Trump administration to move ahead with a stalled rule that would require opioid testing for certain transportation workers.

Currently, the Department of Transportation (DOT) only administers a five-panel drug test for safety-sensitive transportation workers, which includes marijuana, cocaine and PCP.

Railroad engineers, pilots, air traffic controllers and commercial bus and truck drivers are among those who are subject to federal drug and alcohol testing regulations.

But the DOT’s decades-old drug-testing panel does not include prescription painkillers and opioid misuse, which has skyrocketed in the country in recent years.

“We are in the midst of a prescription opioid crisis in America,” Democrats on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee wrote in a letter to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao on Tuesday. “In 2016 alone, it is estimated that 11.8 million Americans engaged in opioid misuse.”

UCJ, UNILORIN.