2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-NINE - Labor (§§ 1 — 3004) › PART I - Labor Provisions Generally (§§ 1 — 510k) › Chapter 8 - Controlled Substances Detection Testing in the Private Work Sector (§§ 161 — 161h) › § 161 - Definitions

The following words shall have the meaning indicated below:
(a) Accident.— Any accidental occurrence, event or action resulting from an act or function of an employee which affects or puts at imminent risk the health, safety or property of any natural or juridical person.
(b) Candidate for employment.— Means any person who applies to an employer for a job, whether verbally or in writing, and who is offered a job, even if conditionally.
(c) Drugs or controlled substances.—Are those included in Schedules I and II of § 2202 of Title 24, known as “Controlled Substances Act of Puerto Rico” or any other legislation of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or the United States of America, with the exception of the use of controlled substances by medical prescription or any other legal use.
(d) Employee.— Is any person employed by an employer, with or without remuneration in any workplace. It includes temporary and provisional employees, those on probation or regular employees.
(e) Laboratory.— Is any entity engaged in performing clinical and chemical forensic analyses, which processes tests for the detection of drugs, substantially using the guidelines and parameters established by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (N.I.D.A.)
(f) Sample.— Means a sufficient amount of urine or any other bodily fluid or tissue obtained in a non-invasive manner and is determined to meet the reliability and accuracy criteria accepted by laboratories for the performance of initial and corroborative testing, and for the retention of a portion to allow the employee or candidate for employment to perform his/her own corroboration test.
(g) Unjustified refusal.— Shall constitute the refusal of a person to submit to the tests for the detection of controlled substances or to cooperate with the processing of such tests, such as without excluding others, failing to show up, without justification, at the place where the sample is to be taken; abandoning the place where the sample is to be taken; clearly stating his/her refusal to submit to the procedure; failing to obey orders or follow the instructions of the laboratory or the official in charge to produce the sample adequately; or altering the sample.
(h) Employer.— Is any natural or juridical person, and any person who represents such natural or juridical person, or who exercises authority over any employment or employee, excluding the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and its municipalities, and any department, agency, instrumentality or dependency thereof.
(i) Controlled substances detection test program.— Means a program to detect the use of controlled substances, which meets the requirements established in §§ 161b and 161c of this title.
(j) Drawing.— Shall consist of the placing of the employee’s numbers in order to select by lottery casting lots, or any other method, those employees that shall have to take the test by mere chance.
(k) Individualized reasonable suspicion.— Is the moral conviction that a specific person is under the effects, the influence, or is a drug user, regardless of whether the fact is established afterwards or not. Said suspicion must be grounded on observable and objective facts, such as:
(1) Direct observation of the use or possession of controlled substances;
(2) physical symptoms which indicate being under the influence of controlled substances;
(3) a persistent pattern of abnormal conduct or erratic behavior in the workplace.
Reasonable and individualized suspicion must be established by at least two (2) supervisors of the employee, of which one shall be a direct supervisor.
History —Aug. 8, 1997, No. 59, § 3; Aug. 12, 2000, No. 160, § 1.