DAMPS Drug and Alcohol Management
 

No doubt Casa will let us know about this soon.

The introduction of an Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) program for the aviation industry will require the aviation sector to introduce minimum standards of drug and alcohol testing, education and support for safety sensitive personnel. This includes; flight crew, cabin crew (flight attendants), flight instructors, aircraft dispatchers, aircraft maintenance and repair personnel, aviation security personnel including security screeners, air traffic controllers, baggage handlers, ground rebuilders and all other personnel with airside access. The regulations were signed by the Executive Council on 18 September 2008, registered on 22 September 2008 and became effective on 23 September 2008.

Anybody been to the roadshows?

Yes - I went this morning. Be very happy and very concerned in the same breath.

The good bits:

Your organisation has 6 months to implement a drug and aclohol management plan. This includes inhouse testing of all new employees and after an accident (alcohol within 8 hours and drugs within 32 hours).

For small organisations, the testing is outsourced (at your expense). ALL employees that perform safety sensitive activities (read need to go airside) need to be drug/alcohol tested by your system - that includes each and every contractor.

For positive tests, they are dealt with in a proactive manner that appears to be designed with the health and wellbeing of the person in mind. CASA do not want to know names of those testing positive, just the stats - numbers tested and numbers positive.

The concerning bits:

ANYONE who is not a passenger may be tested airside by CASA's (outsourced) drug testers. This is an oral swab and breath test.

If positive, the sample will go off to get tested to identify the exact drug. Then the CASA doctor (one of 3) will get in touch with you for an explanation. The doctor will then consider your case.

Now consider this....

You as a pilot are ill and receive prescription medication. As such, you tell the Chief Pilot and remove yourself from flying duties. Keen to help out, you head in to do some amendments and other desk duties.

You wander out to the aircraft to grab the Jepps to update. THere is a tester floating around and you are tested - you have no choice as the regs say that if you are airside you are conducting a Safety Sensitive Aviation Activity.

You will test positive because of the medication in your system. YOU ARE THEN NOT ALLOWED BY LAW TO DO ANYTHING AIRSIDE or back in the office that involves manuals, flight planning, loadsheets, instruction etc.

The sample will be tested by the lab and the results send to one of three CASA doctors. The doctor will then ring you for an explanation. You tell him your case - you are not flying because of prescribed medication. the CASA doc will with ring your doctor for confirmation and then tell you that all is OK.

By admission of the CASA drug testing doctor running today's workshop, this could take up to TWO WEEKS.

So, if you are tested whilst on prescribed medication it will take 2 weeks to clear your name in which time you cannot do anything....:ugh::ugh:

Moral of the story is that, if you are crook, stay at home! :ok:

A tad misleading. They will be testing for alcohol and other drugs such as morphine, codeine, amphetamines etc. If you are in so much pain that you need morphine you wont be at work. It is possible you could be taking codeine and be at work but just ask the doc what he or she is giving you. You can buy codeine over the counter anyway.

Quite right MR, BUT, the prescription meds (and even over the counter meds, depending on where you are) that can result in a false positive test are numerous as has been previously mentioned on other threads, (Lomitil/Immodium stand out in my memory). I for one, don't even want the idea that i've tried to operate under the influence of anything, getting me in that sort of predicament. Some mud always sticks and this needs a really well worked thought process and protocol testing first. My two bobs worth :ouch::ouch::ouch:

Um, that's the point MR. You can have legitimate medication even from the doctor (we were told that PanadINE will result in a positive test) and not be flying (doing flight plans, amendments, washing aircraft) and if you are tested you will be stood down from all duties for u to 2 weeks...

This whole process just annoys me. Is CASA really trying hard to shut down GA?

Suppose I'm on a trip somewhere, a thousand miles from home, and one of these characters tests me and I come up with a false positive, say as a result of taking a Sudafed or Codral?

Then there is the question of going airside to retrieve a manual or sunglasses, or going into a hangar to check the status of an aircraft, after having a couple of glasses of wine at lunch.

I would like an official answer to these questions. The reason I want answers is because these are not hypothetical questions. Both situations have occurred for me at YBHI.

If such trifles are NOT ruled out of bounds right now, then I predict that the wave of lawsuits is going to be impressive.

But then maybe that is CASA's lawyers intentions, more legal work until a judge finally rules that natural justice has not been served.

Had they considered having a Dr's certificate stating you will be off flying duties for the period #### to #### and that XYZ has been prescribed over this period.

If tested and shows a positive the tester takes sample and photocopy of Dr Cert and its up to them in the next two weeks to prove something else is in your system. Then take it from there.

Maybe a more innocent til proven guilty system!

J

It's all a sign of how crazy & politically correct we are getting, we are sh*t scared, of ourselves!:rolleyes:
Let 'em come test us & stand down say 3 of us who might be on drugs for colds etc, then we shall see how practicable this stunt is!

CW

Try this one on.
We had a barby and drinks in the hangar last friday.
Most of company pilots and engineers drinking with hangar doors open.
So if a tester turned up we alll would have been, well in various states of intoxication.
What does that mean for all of us?

So far I take it that two of us have done the road show.

At the one I attended ( well run ) there was provision for 70 attendee's.
There was me, a airport security rep, a catering Coy rep and a Casa observer.

Makes it hard for the Casa Avmed staff to get their message over to the industry.

Roadshow no-shows
 

It would probably help if they informed people, I am on their email list and got nothing. Notice the website is bare too.

DAMP
 

A frightening, draconian piece of legislation. Have there really been so many drug/alcohol related incidents as to justify these sort of rules????

Just getting from the parking lot to your aircraft turns into an epic battle, fighting your way through passport control, security, ASIC checkers, DAMP testers and finally ramp checkers...; all this of course whilst wearing your high viz safety vest!!

Madness....

Wait until the first positive result hits the papers :rolleyes:

Wally and Timber make good points, and I think to a degree civil disobedience is the answer:

In the case of the hangar pissup, the CFI/CEO/highest rank present need to have the balls to tell the inspector to get lost in no uncertain terms. It's clear that it's a social event and there will be no intoxicated flying or handling of machinery, in any case the AOC holder has a responsibility for their men and women.

Same for the ground duty case. The CFI/CEO/OPS mgr. must have the authority to assign a pilot who's on meds to ground duty without fear of retribution.

In individual cases, it works as well: while at one of the big mining FIFO aerodromes in the west with a group on a fly-in, the security Nazi was trying to tell us to all get our ASICs out (some of the pilots in the group didn't have any, he didn't have an answer to that one) while we were schlepping gear and stuff. I simply ignored him and he went away..

Don't be afraid to stand up for common sense, and to threaten a lawsuit or a formal complaint, that'll normally reign in all but the most obnoxious tos$ers..

Methinks these rules are made for the large airports with hundreds of subcontracting entities. Seems Australia is a country that over-regulates to begin with, and when it comes down to it, common sense often prevails. Let hope :}

Has anyone investigated the costs associated with this testing for a GA Operator with three bases scattered across Qld with 2 pilots at each base.

I have never had a problem with "show cause" testing but the whole random approach has the capacity of unintended consequences as discussed here

Socket - correct.
I received nothing then out of the blue a phone call the previous afternoon.
They are very aware of the Prune so maybe they may appear and post some answers to your questions.
Are you there B---?

Meagle,

Seems they were listening, the seminars appeared on the website and now there is a media release too.:ok:

Chief Erwin,

A scenario similar to your hangar barbie scenario was given to the CASA doc taking the seminar.

His explanation was in that case, the tester would first approach your company DAMP Officer who would then inform the tester who was performing a safety sensitive aviation activity and who wasn't.