Pete Guither asks us to help put together a challenge to a page at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) called Drugs in the Workplace—What an employer needs to know.
I’ll start with the third sentence, which includes this: “77 percent of illicit drug users in the United States are employed.” Since the employment rate in the general population is only 63 percent, it appears that illicit drug users work harder than the non-drug-using population. That’s skewed by the fact that women, the very young, and the very old have a lower labor force participation rate and also use illicit drugs less. Still, if you look at the breakdown by age and sex, illicit drug users post some pretty good numbers.
More seriously, the page has an interesting breakdown in credibility about half-way through. The first half discusses the problems caused by workplace substance abuse and gives actual quantitative answers in dollars and percentages and relative likelyhoods of certain outcomes. The references aren’t the greatest—secondary publications rather than scientific studies or reliable statistics—but still, they’re laying it all out for us to see.
The second half tries to answer the question “What can your organization do to decrease the impact of substance abuse?” The answer they give is “Implement a drug-free workplace program.” But this section of the document contains no references or statistics of any kind. They were quick to give statistics for the dangers of drug use, but appear to have nothing to prove that implementing a drug-free workplace program is actually effective.
I haven’t even begun to describe the fundamental problem with the SAMHSA page. That will be a longer article, which will have to wait until I’m less busy.
There are hundreds of studies that can be found all over the internet that come to the conclusion that a drug free workplace saves a company in many areas.
You will see a reduction in time missed, you will have less accidents, you will have fewer medical claims and your workers comp rate will go down.
The best way to implement a plan is by using instant drug screens for onsite testing. You will get faster results, reduce the time to hire and in the case of a non-negative result you still have the backing of a lab and an MRO.
Instant tests cost %60 less than lab tests and are just as accurate and do not increase your liability or risk.