Page 37 - Occupational Health & Safety, February 2018

While the culture may have shifted, the lines of safety do not change. They are constant. Adolescent-type arguments of “it’s not fair” must fall on deaf ears when it comes to workplace drug and alcohol policies that place safety first. Both the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. armed forces model of drug-free workplace programs have achieved significant improvements in safety and productivity.
We spend too much time arguing about whether this drug or that behavior is the gateway to further drug use, when at the core of those red herrings lies one truth: drugs and safety don’t mix.
At the end of the day, we are in a time where substance abuse crosses all spectrums of age, gender, race, occupation, and person- ality type. There are no more stereotypical drug users, there is a substance abuse problem in the United States, and it is a Herculean problem for the employer that allows gray space in its policies.
The most recent Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index shows the greatest increase in use of all illicit drugs by U.S. employees in 12 years, based on laboratory drug test results.4 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, drug and alcohol-related deaths in the workplace soared in 2016 with a spike of more than 30 percent in a single year.5 The BLS data also show that fatal work injuries in 2016 were the highest since 2008. These trends are not the way we want to go, and robust drug testing policies as well as a work culture that enforces safety first is the path to reversal.
U.S. employers have the opportunity to not only hold the line, but also a responsibility to protect the vulnerable worker from ac- cident or injury by those who may be under the influence at work.
It is time for employers, trade associations, and membership or- ganizations that make America work to guide the way in workplace drug and alcohol testing policies for the purpose of protecting em- ployees, customers, and the general public, because safety is our highest priority.
Jo McGuire is an advocate, speaker, and writer for safe and drug-free workplaces, families, and communities as the founder and President of Five Minutes of Courage. She also serves as the Senior Project Man- ager for TSS Inc, a workplace screening services provider, specializing in workplace drug and alcohol policy writing. She was appointed as a member of the Taxation, Banking & Civil Law workgroup for the Colorado Governor’s Task Force to regulate Amendment 64 in Colo- rado and is a national conference speaker, published author, and a founding affiliate of Colorado’s Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
REFERENCES
1. http://norml.org/news/2017/02/14/norml-forms-multi-state-workplace- drug-testing-coalition
2. The Economic Costs of alcohol and Drug Abuse in the United States, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Rockville, MD, 1992
3. Psychomotor Function in Chronic Daily Cannabis Smokers during Sustained Abstinence, PLOS One, Bosker et al., January 2013
4. https://www.questdiagnostics.com/home/physicians/health-trends/ drug-testing
5. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf
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