Page 86 - Occupational Health & Safety, June 2019

E m p l o y e e D r u g & A l c o h o l Te s t i n g
The trend toward relaxing drug policies stems from a tendency to view some substances as more or less harmful than others. The reality is, any impairment of any kind is unsafe.
of these current laws prevents an employer from having a workplace drug testing pol- icy and enforcing a drug-free workplace. While changing marijuana laws happens to be what is currently trending, the parame- ters for safety must stand true and will out- last the momentary hoopla of popularizing this particular drug of choice.
Workplace drug testing should be used as a deterrent to drug use, with a positive focus on detecting when an individual needs help with their sobriety as well as remind- ers of the importance of staying safety-focused at all times.
Workplace drug testing should be used as a deterrent to drug use, with a positive focus on detecting when an individual needs help with their sobriety as well as reminders of the importance of staying safety-focused at all times. At the end of the day, employees may not realize the value in it, but drug testing is part of their individu- al rights to safety in the workplace, yet it is the employer’s responsibility to protect and keep those rights fully intact.
James A. Greer is the President/CEO of Ac- credited Drug Testing, Inc. and the current Chairman of the National Drug and Alco- hol Screening Association (NDASA). He has more than 30 years of experience in the na- tion’s drug and alcohol testing industry and founded one of the first drug testing compa- nies, which conducted drug testing relating to the DOT drug testing requirements, in 1993. He has been recognized for his lead- ership, business, and governmental affairs expertise by numerous organizations. He resides in Orlando, Fla., with his wife, Lisa, and five children.
REFERENCES
1. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics-Drug and Crime Data
2. National Institute on Drug Abuse
3. U.S. Department of Labor
4. U.S. Department of Transportation
of this drug usage occurs at work, or the employees are high when they arrive to their workplace.
These statistics clearly show the poten- tial for a workplace injury, particularly in the areas of transportation, manufactur- ing, and heavy equipment operation. The need to conduct drug and alcohol testing is crucial to providing a safe environment for employees. The U.S. Department of Labor and the National Institute on Drug Abuse also have found that employees who suffer from drug or alcohol dependency are near- ly three times more likely to either cause or personally experience an injury-related absence from work.
The benefits for an employer who chooses a drug-free workplace are nu- merous and can include a reduction in the employee turnover rate, a reduction in workplace incidents or accidents, im- proved employee morale, and in many cases a reduction of insurance premiums as it relates to the operations of the business. Furthermore, drug use has a direct impact on violence and criminal behavior, which also can impact workplace safety. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that adults between the ages of 18 to 49 who use mari- juana or cocaine were much more likely to commit crimes of all types than those who do not use these illegal substances.
Turning Back the Clock?
In recent years a discussion has begun in which drug-free workplace testing is being questioned. Many who oppose an employ- er’s right to perform drug tests fail to recog- nize that drug testing directly impacts the ability of an employer in providing a safe workplace for his or her employees. These efforts to limit or eliminate workplace drug testing either choose to ignore or are un- aware of how workplace safety became an important part of our nation’s historical employer/employee relationship.
Eliminating drug testing in the work- place will not only place employees at risk, but it will turn back more than 100 years of efforts made to protect our nation’s
workforce and meet the commitments that employers made to their hard-working em- ployees that safety is our priority.
For employers who have or are consid- ering relaxing their workplace drug testing programs as a result of recent changes in how various states respond to individual marijuana use, there must be a clear under- standing of two major impacts, which are:
■ The culpability the employer will face by putting its non-drug using work- force in jeopardy of injury
■ The risks/costs associated with as- suming 100 percent liability for any and all workplace accidents caused by employee substance use.
Marijuana is Not Safe for Work
The trend toward relaxing drug policies stems from a tendency to view some sub- stances as more or less harmful than oth- ers. The reality is, any impairment of any kind is unsafe. That having been said, let’s consider the issues surrounding employee marijuana use. While it makes for good political sound bites to say that marijuana is “safe,” the harsh reality is that today’s marijuana products are anywhere between 10 and 50 times more powerful than the same drug used in the 1970s-1980s. Any training that helps supervisors detect the signs and symptoms of employee drug use means they will spend a significant amount of time explaining how employees who use marijuana have difficulty learning and retaining new information, trouble with multi-divided attention tasks, struggle with time and distance tracking, can display hallucinatory behaviors, and could be at- risk for psychotic breaks. Does this sound “safe” for the workplace?
We are in an era where some employers choose to ignore substance use that could cause significant damage—at their own expense—simply because it is a political hot button. This simply is not a wise fiscal decision, nor is it a policy that respects the safety of the workforce.
While some states have changed laws pertaining to workplace drug testing, none
82 Occupational Health & Safety | JUNE 2019
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