I’d heard about this new drive to cut down on crazy driving by weeding out the drug users. I just conveniently forgot about it when the time came to line up at the LTO.
I opted for the "mini" LTO inside Farmer’s Plaza on EDSA. Talk about convenient. In between filling out forms, surrendering your license and peeing into a plastic bottle, you can do a little shopping, too.
The line at the LTO wasn’t too heinous. But the line at the Joreca Drug Test Laboratory two doors down – now, that was enough to make you consider public transportation.
Bodies were spilling out of this tiny little storefront operation, most of them clutching "drug testing" forms, waiting for their names to be called. A pair of processors stapled drivers’ licenses to completed forms, then passed these through a cubbyhole; in time, I was guided inside where a pair of "medical professionals" checked to see if I was legally blind, pumped my arm a few times to measure blood pressure, then removed P300 from my wallet.
The form is kind of amusing. It asks for the "purpose of your drug test." You may choose from any of the following:
• Employment (Private/Government)
• License (Drivers/Firearms)
• Student (Secondary/Tertiary)
• Candidate for public office (Appointed/Elected)
It then goes on to request the "X" mark of "Persons arrested or apprehended for violating this act" (i.e., illegal drug users); and "Persons charged before the prosecutor’s office with a criminal offense having impossible penalty of imprisonment of not less than six years. And one day." (This is a direct quote. I’m still not sure what they mean by "impossible" or "And one day.")
At the lab, I watched, hypnotized, as forms passed through cubbyholes, plastic bottles passed from hand to hand, cash was exchanged and happy customers finally left clutching negative test results. It’s a very cramped little space, this drug-testing center. The form processors sit just a few feet away from the cubicles where people urinate all day long. I noticed the two processors wrinkling their noses occasionally, and wondered, fleetingly, if they mind very much working in a urinal.
I learned from one of the processors that the drug test results are "valid for one year." This is amazing. This means you could, theoretically, cut back on your drug intake for a while, go in, pass your urine test with flying colors, then go back to your illegal self-medicating habits for up to a year, and still come back and get your license. As long as your were clean on that one day at the Joreca Drug Test Laboratory, then no problemo.
Finally, I was called for my urine test. I felt like asking the guy who handed me a plastic bottle what training he had to inspect fresh urine. He seemed pretty professional about the whole thing, though (patting me down to ensure that I wasn’t securing any warm, already-filled bottles on my person as I entered the cubicle), so I decided against small talk. I actually wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.
There was a brief moment of anxiety when I wondered if I could fill the bottle. I had just gone before leaving the house, so I had to concentrate. But happily, the waters began to flow without end. As I overfilled the bottle, I thought how enterprising I would have been if I’d swiped a few extra bottles on the way in and filled those up, too. I could have sold them out in the waiting area to collect a tidy profit. But I already have a day job.
Moving along, I turned over my bottle, and my release forms, and waited a bit longer for the results to come back. There were a few moments of doubt there, as I considered what drugs I’d been taking lately. I had a cold, so antihistamines were surely still in my system; maybe some Robitussin floating around there as well. Nothing serious, I concluded.
It turns out the test screens only for methamphetamine (shabu, or crystal speed) and tetrahydrocannabinol (the active ingredient in marijuana). On both counts, I was "negative," which will surely make driving a much easier and safer experience for everyone around me. But it got me to thinking. Theoretically, a lot of drugs could slip through the rigorous drug-testing net of the LTO. Theoretically, I could have been on heroin and the test would have missed it completely. Theoretically, I could have been dropping Ecstasy, smoking PCP, sniffing Rugby, and my pee would still have come up crystal pure. Theoretically, I could have been bingeing on any number of illegal drugs – as long as they didn’t contain THC or meth – as well as snorting lines of Zim cleanser and pouring vast quantities of San Miguel down my gullet, all the while tooling down EDSA and waving the bottle out the window at frightened pedestrians in my path on the way to the LTO.
But no. Under those circumstances, I would probably have had to take the special "Bus Driver’s Urine Test," wouldn’t I?