It shouldn't take a judge to order a reliable drug test for Peabody firefighters.
Indeed, if anyone has an interest in their colleagues' being sober, it's the firefighter or police officer whose very life might depend on the mental acuity of others answering the call with them. Yet it took an order from Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Riley last month to allow city officials access to hair-follicle testing in determining whether someone is fit for promotion in the Peabody Fire Department.
That's one small step for the administration in its effort to bring accountability to public safety administration, and one giant black mark against the firefighters' union which would just as soon stick with the urine test mandated in the contract - a test experts say is less able to detect drug use over a long period of time.
It's because the city employed the hair-follicle test - which came up positive, by the way - on firefighter John Brophy, that it's currently on the hook for an estimated $100,000 in back pay if it loses its court appeal of an arbitrator's ruling that he was improperly terminated from the department in 2005. The arbitrator found that the contract didn't allow testing of Brophy's hair, and it's partly on that technicality his firing for offenses that also included sleeping on duty and getting into an altercation with a superior officer, could be overturned.
Unless they condone drug use; and if they want to be considered professionals, and compensated as such; police and firefighters should insist on holding themselves and their colleagues to high standards. But in the case of Peabody's firefighters, when it comes to drug-testing they seem content with the easiest-to-fool standard, which does a disservice to the public and themselves.
