Pubdate: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 Source: Asbury Park Press (NJ) Contact: http://www.injersey.com/app/ Forum: http://chat.injersey.com/ Author: ANDREW GANNON PRISON GUARD GETS SUPPORT IN DRUG-TEST THRESHOLD ISSUE JACKSON -- Reginald Fredette, a corrections officer from Jackson who says he was wrongly suspended from his job for testing positive for opiates after eating poppy-seed bagels, has found an ally in Trenton. "I believe in zero tolerance, but you have to be fair," state Sen. Robert W. Singer said yesterday. At Fredette's request, Singer, R-Ocean, has written a letter to state Attorney General John Farmer, asking him to investigate the officer's case and explain why the state's drug-testing policy does not comply with the federal government's, which Fredette contends is the reason he was dismissed. Fredette, 45, has a disciplinary hearing next Thursday and faces permanent dismissal. He was removed from his job at the Adult Diagnostics and Treatment Center in Woodbridge Dec. 13 for failing a urine test the month before. Fredette says his test came back positive for opiates because the state's cutoff of 300 nanograms of opiate per milliliter of urine is too stringent, persecuting him for eating bagels topped with poppy seeds, from which opium can be made. A subsequent test confirmed that Fredette had an opiate concentration of 863 nanograms per milliliter, well below the standards used for federal employees, which is 2,000 nanograms per milliliter. Charles Lodico, a chemist with the federal government's Division of Workplace Programs in Maryland, has said the federal government changed its opiate cutoff for federal employees -- including workers at the FBI, Justice Department and CIA -- from 300 to 2,000 nanograms per milliliter in December of 1998 for the very reason Fredette's in trouble now. Eighty-five percent of employees who tested positive for opiates at the 300-nanogram-per-milliliter threshold were later found innocent, Lodico said. Singer said believes the attorney general should have considered modifying the state's threshold when the federal government changed its threshold. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea