BRIBE – to persuade (someone) to act in one’s favor, typically illegally or dishonestly by a gift of money or other inducement

We recently did some random testing on-site. This employer has adopted saliva testing as many of our customers have. We started with an instant saliva testing device and the donor was non-negative (we don’t say positive when we speak of instant devices) for methamphetamine.

Because of the inconclusive results, the collector immediately started a lab-based saliva test to confirm what the instant was predicting. The donor questioned our collector about the results of the instant test, and our collector informed the donor the test was inconclusive therefore we needed a lab-based test for confirmation. The nervous donor quizzed our collector about which drug(s) were inconclusive, the collector informed the donor it was methamphetamine, but the test was considered inconclusive until we received the lab results. The donor then took out three $100 bills and asked the collector if she could just “mark it negative”. She refused, then he took out another 2 bills and added them to the 3; our collector again refused the offer. The donor then refused to give a second saliva sample for the lab-based test, so we reported it as a refusal, and he was terminated by the employer.

In my 15-year career in the drug testing industry, this is the 3rd time one of our collectors was offered a bribe. We pay our collectors well and have a positive culture, this creates very loyal, long term, employees. I am not sure that sentiment is universal in our industry.