According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, more than two thirds of individuals who report using or abusing drugs and alcohol are employed...50 percent full time and about half of them part time.
The cost by drug abusive employers in industry is estimated at over one hundred billion dollars a year. Three quarters of this cost is due to lost employment and reduced productivity and about 25 percent is due to medical costs and the cost of treatment for addiction.
Drug users are almost four times as likely to be involved in a workplace accident as sober workers and five times as likely to file a workers’ compensation claim, according to government data. Drug users miss more days of work, show up late and change jobs more often. The cost of a drug test, meanwhile, is usually less than $50.
Is Drug Testing at Work Place Legal?
If you plan to use alcohol and drug testing as a part of a workplace substance abuse policy, there are many legal issues that must first be addressed.
Drug testing -and particularly random drug testing is not allowed in every state in the U.S. Before proceeding with such a policy, a company needs to check with its state Department of Labor for current laws. Even if such testing is allowed, and employees are found to be using drugs and alcohol, employers may find their options are limited in how they can respond.
Advantages of Drug Testing At Work Places
There are four advantages of drug testing at work.
1.Safety: There is concern that an individual who is impaired by alcohol or drugs is an increased safety risk to him or herself, coworkers and/or the public. This may be of particular concern where employees have safety-critical functions. This is true, for example, of air traffic controllers, train drivers, ambulance drivers, pilots, bus drivers, miners and quarry workers.
2. Organizational efficiency: it is believed that the use of alcohol and drugs can be a causeof low productivity, absenteeism and high staff turnover. It is further assumed that drug testing can reduce the number of working days that are lost through staff absence, increase productivity and reduce the costs of recruiting and training new employees.
3. Reputational risk: some employers are concerned about the damage that they believe can be caused to the reputations of their organisation as a result of alcohol and drug use among their workforce. The use of illegal drugs by employees will be a particularly sensitive issue in some professions, such as the police force and the prison service.
4 Employee welfare: it has been suggested that drug testing can help to improve the health and welfare of the workforce by deterring drug use and by helping to identify staff who have problems. These individuals can be encouraged to seek help by their employers and supported in their efforts to address their substance misuse problems.
A drug test is commonly a technical examination to determine the presence or absence of specified drugs or their metabolized traces. According to the Chicago land Chamber of Commerce, “Over 70% of all illicit drug users are employed. Small and medium-sized firms employ 80% of the U.S. workforce where drug testing policies & programs are not in place. Absenteeism, increased health care costs and decreased productivity due to alcohol and other substance abuse cost a company $1,000 per employee per year." It gives the importance of drug testing at work place.
Primarily there are five methods of drug testing. Those are
.Urine drug testing: Urine drug test is the most common, inexpensive, simple and easy to administer. Urine drug tests are reliable and can be tested individually and at other places.
.Blood drug testing: Blood testing is one of the most accurate drug testing but intrusive and expensive.
.Hair drug testing: When used in right time hair testing gives more accurate results and it is most expensive drug testing.
.Saliva drug testing: Oral drug testing is the simplest form of drug testing, which is increasingly used, as it is the least intrusive test procedure.
.Sweat drug testing: Sweat tests are patches attached to the skin to collect sweat over a long period of time (10–14 days).
Drug testing, and particularly random drug testing is not allowed in every state in the United States. There are certain guidelines mentioned by The Federal Drug-Free Work Place Act of 1988. Following guidelines give the minimum requirements.
.Publish a policy statement prohibiting unlawful use, possession, manufacture, or distribution of controlled substances in the workplace;
.Notify employees of said prohibition and the penalty for violating it;
.Establish a drug-free awareness program;
.Provide employees engaged in a contract with a copy of the policy statement;
.Notify employees that compliance with the policy statement is a condition of employment;
.Require (in writing in your policy) employees to notify the employer within five
.Days if they are convicted of a criminal drug statute violation occurring in the workplace;
.Make a good-faith effort to maintain a drug-free workplace through these provisions.
In 2004 SAMHSA proposed a new rule that would allow federal agencies to use sweat, saliva and hair in federal drug testing programs that now only test urine. The proposal would also allow selected specimen testing at the time and place it is collected.
Drug testing has an important role in safety-critical and other occupations where the public is entitled to expect the highest standards of safety and probity. In order to make the workforce free from drug use at work places several new methods are in line under the rules proposed by SAMHSA that are unintrusive, inescapable and yield accurate results.
Nate Rodnay has sinced written about articles on various topics from Parenting, Join the Army and Addictions. DrugTestStrips.com is an online store offering Drug Test Kits and Drug Screening Products in several formats including Blood, Urine and Oral . DrugTestStrips.com offers FDA-approved u. Nate Rodnay's top article generates over 40500 views. to your Favourites.