Drug Testing at JAMS

JAMS is a joke. It is an unorganized debacle of mixed up paperwork and people who would much rather be someplace else. The "facilities" are located in tiny micro offices in various strip malls and there are quite a few locations. When you first go in it is called "intake". You show them your court ordered testing print out, drivers license (temporary in my case) and a photo ID (passport in my case). I also showed them my Medical Marijuana card and they photo copied everything. At no time did anyone ever say that my medical marijuana card was invalid or that I needed to stop smoking weed, but I'm still getting drug tested for it...
JAMS is strictly cash only, no personal checks and nothing larger than a $20 unless you are paying for credit (more on this in a minute). After your intake you will likely find that they don't know what you are there for when you go back in and they will ask you "what are you testing for?". It's an odd question first starting out so you need to learn the lingo:
Blow = is a breathalyser or BAC. A big machine right on the counter that you blow into first thing on your visit.
Drop = is where you get a printout with your name on it and go in the back bathroom to pee in a cup.

There are some other tests for hard stuff and an alcohol EtG piss test that costs a lot more but it seems that a first time OWI gets the Blow and Drop on every visit for $9 a visit (went up to $10 in 2014).

Don't be surprised that everyone in the place looks like their mom just died, you will get used to it. And it does not hurt at all to be really friendly to the employees and even get their name to start some small-talk each time you go in. They will remember you for it and the chances of them making mistakes (forgetting your paper work, handing you someone else's paperwork, asking what you test for, miscounting money, forgetting to log you in the book, etc, etc) goes down a little bit. You seriously need to double check them on everything unless you want to get a no-show or piss for someone else.

So how it works is during your intake they will assign you a color. The color is based on the frequency of your random testing per week. Certain colors for 1x, 2x, 3x per week. Then there are other colors depending on if you are doing AM or PM testing but I don't think they mix up the two. You will need to call or check their web site every day to see if your color is up and their hours are typically 6-9am and 5-7pm. No mercy if you are late, they lock the door.  I was always AM testing so most of this is based on that.

When you go in the first thing to do is get in line at the desk (not the other line). Then sign in on the log book, pay and initial next to your name in another book. Then to blow you take a pre-made 1/2 straw, wait for them to enable the machine, when the machine says "blow" you put your straw into the port and blow until you see ++ on the display. Some places you need to blow your brains out before it will click, others you can practically blow in the general direction for a second and it will register - same exact type of machine, just different calibrations or something. Then it chews on your breath for a bit and finally displays .00 (hopefully). You do not want to use any mouth wash, smoke just before going in or have Baileys in your coffee obviously. They can and will trigger a positive. I actually got a positive due to mouthwash on one of my first tests, they made me sit for 15 minutes and then they enabled the 3 point accuracy with a print out on the machine and it still came up as .003. I was very worried about that at the time, but I never heard anything more on it.

Next you get your printout to drop, make sure it has your name on it. I lost track of how many times I was handed someone else's sheet. Then either go stand in the other line to drop, or sit and wait to be called, depending on the location. This part can take awhile but there are all kinds of printouts and posters all over the walls to read and get caught up on this testing process. When you are called back you will need to sign your sheet and fill in your birth date. You will also initial the piece of anti-tamper tape they put on the cup, sometimes before, sometimes after you drop depending on the location. They hand you the cup and you go in a bathroom with 3 large mirrors on each wall. Don't even bother freaking out about the mirrors, they look, who cares, but it's always guys for guys and ladies for ladies for the drop testing so no big deal. There is a good chance that one time you will not pee enough in the cup, this WILL freak you out because they toss it out and you will have to re-drop. Either you wait around there, or take off, slam a bunch of water and go back. Either way you now have a mental paranoia about peeing on demand!
Here's a trick to get over that: Don't try and pee in the cup. Relax and only concentrate on your bladder and think how full it must be. Boom, works every time, for me.
Fill a little over half and you are good. Sometimes you take the cup out and sometimes they reach in and grab it from you, which is really annoying if you ask me. Then say "have a nice day", go out to wash your hands (the sinks in the bathroom are disabled) and you are on your way.

JAMS allows you to run a credit, as long as you pay cash up front, and I recommend it. If you know you are going to be testing 1x per week for 3 months you can throw them $120 cash and get a credit log sheet. Keep this log sheet with you and they will fill it out each time you go in and deduct from the balance. Not only do you not have to worry about having cash but you also get a log of all your visits, date, time, bac, location and employee as a redundant backup in case something gets mixed up. Plus their math isn't always so sharp, sometimes they add to the CR rather than subtract! When you fill out the log in sheet you just put CR in the fee paid box. Very handy if you can afford it up front.

It's not ironic that JAMS is owned by one of the court judges, managed by their spouse and yet is always court ordered for any drug and/or alcohol offense.  Judge Brian W. MacKenzie  

What driving with a .100 BAC and later testing positive for weed got me.

Here is a summary all the crap the court has put me through.

• When all is said and done I will have been drug tested about 100 times ($10 each).
• Holiday BAC (blow in a hand-held) testing ($5 each time) 5 to 8 times, both am and pm, on various holidays including the super bowl. Plan nothing but that on those holidays.
• (PRE-TREATMENT) I had to attend a mandatory 3 day pre-counseling class ($60) that trained you how to find and manipulate your way into substance abuse counseling. Counselors seem to be wary of people who are court ordered to go to counseling so you need to not entirely tell the truth to get in the door, and then tell them you are court ordered so they can report to your PO. This class is worse than useless and I recommend not using anything they say and just ask your PO to recommend one or pick one from the court list because anything else won't be accepted. 
• (LIFE ADJUSTMENT) Go to 12 sessions of counseling (mine is $50 each).
• (AA - NA) Find and attend AA meetings two times a week and have someone there sign your AA attendance sheet for the court. ($1 donation each time) This runs the entire length of my 18 month probation and is quite frankly, hell. This is highly religious in nature and my personal take on it is that replacing something that makes you stupid with something designed to keep you stupid is just plain stupid. Aside from that, going to the same group all the time, I'm getting to know some of the people and most of them are pretty cool.
• Visit my parole officer (PO) once a month so they can copy my drug testing and AA meeting sheets and set the next date. Mine is friendly enough and so far straight-up about answering any questions I have. I always try to come up with questions each time I visit, usually stuff I already know the answer to, but just to confirm and double check so I don't get in any more trouble. After all the court fees are paid off my PO switched to every other month reporting in person. Then in the off months I filled out the report sheet, scanned that, my testing and AA sheets and email it to him. You can fax, email or snail mail around the middle of the month.
• 50 hours community service ($15 per day). You pay for this in your court fees so usually by the time you get to doing this it's already paid for. They give you a log sheet with a raised seal on it, treat it like gold because it's the only record you'll have of your service hours. Pick a place from the list of places, but pick wisely as some of them can suck. I chose a church and it usually consisted of a lot of cleaning and moving things around. I heard from others that the state parks are a workout (shoveling sh*t), High Schools are not bad and the police and fire stations are a nightmare.
• The cost total will be about $6000 when all is said and done.

So far all of the people I've met in AA that have had a DUI have had more than one DUI, not a lot of them, not even most of them, ALL of them! 

Just 3 or 4 beers is all it takes to blow a .08 and that's all they need... BAC Charts

Some tips I've learned along the way:
1) Keep all of your paper work. Especially stuff you have had signed. PO's will try to take your paper work. Ask them to make copies and let you keep the originals. Reason is: if you don't have it, someone else can loose it, and you'll have to do it all over again.
2) Stay positive. It's a big bunch of bull shit but take it in stride and try to always talk about it in a positive light. Negativity will only make things worse.
3) Your PO isn't always going to guide you. I've heard many stories of people violating their probation due to being late with community service because they forgot about it or didn't get their sheet from the PO until late in the sentence. Be it sketchy stories or PO's jerking around, either way it's in your best interest to stay on top of things.
4) Stand your ground in AA, there are a lot of people who will pounce on you if you seem at all weak or insecure. They want to help but really they want to sell you the AA bible and get you into their religion. If that's your thing then fine, if not you will have to fend them off all the time. It sucks to be court ordered to put up with this kind of conflict and walking on egg shells at every meeting so you don't offend their delicate religion. For me this is by far the worst punishment of this whole ordeal.
5) If you have a Michigan Medical Mariana card get it revoked. It is beyond useless and you cannot buy a gun nor get a CPL if you have it.
Send a written request along with your card and a copy of your photo ID to
MMMW
P.O. box 30083
Lansing, MI 48909

They will send a letter back in about 2 weeks.