Compelled by a wish to safeguard well-being, health and safety of workers, workplace substance misuse testing has grown more commonplace across Britain. But nevertheless, there are still several misconceptions associated with the system, which could create misgivings amongst the members of staff being screened.
Drugs Information In The Workplace – Where are the risks?
Lots of individuals get the idea that the effect of drugs and alcohol within the workplace is a trivial matter. Each and every one of us has seen Christmas anti-drink-driving TV campaigns and as a result, know that drug driving and drink-driving isn’t safe, so can’t we rely on people’s judgement? Regrettably, almost fifty percent of all workplace and roadside deaths within the UK relate to drink, drugs, or a combination of both. Recent information indicate that over 70% of drug users are in full-time employment, suggesting that the typical drug user is, in a sense, the average company employee. Newly released Home Office studies place the volume of 16 to 29-year-olds who misused illegal substances within the previous year at just under 50%. On that basis, this isn’t someone else’s concern, it is relevant to just about every single workplace. Although the intermittent use of narcotics does not automatically suggest risk-taking and irresponsibility within the company, it does dramatically magnify the likelihood of incidents and accidents, attendance issues, a reduction in productivity, damages to plant and equipment, being sued and a larger turnover of employees.
Drugs Information In The Workplace – What can be done? Isn’t workplace drug testing disruptive?
Plenty of organizations only conduct testing after an accident, an incident or near miss, or anytime they find reasonable grounds for concern that a member of the workforce could potentially be unsafe or unfit to be at work. As a result of the broad range of possible risks found at industrial business premises, numerous employers consider it entirely justifiable to carry out testing in such situations, in order to avoid them from happening again.
In contrast, random drug testing brings on-site testing a stage further, where a predetermined percentage of the workforce is randomly picked to provide a sample of breath and/or urine. This may seem a little intrusive, though it is actually very normal for only five percent of the workforce to be drug screened up to once every 12 month period. This would mean that only one in 20 people being drug and alcohol tested, or, as an employee, your odds of being subject to a screen should be once every 20 years. As incredible as it sounds, this form of infrequent testing has actually been shown to lessen rates of positivity from as much as forty six percent down to as low as two percent inside of just a handful of months. This indicates that the run of the mill drug user found within the work environment isn’t hopelessly addicted and unable to change, but is simply making lifestyle choices that may possibly be reshaped in the direction of a more positive outcome.
Drugs Information In The Workplace. Should this be deemed an invasion of a person’s civil Liberties?
Whilst a number of individuals within the company might be hesitant at first regarding the prospect of workplace testing, the significant majority get the idea that this is being carried out to underpin the safety and security of everybody within the workplace. Provided the degree of on-site drug screening is proportionate to the possible dangers within the workplace and doesn’t intentionally impact upon employee life outside of work, it cannot pose a danger to and employee’s human rights. Around the United States of America, around ninety eight percent of the biggest 1000 businesses drug and alcohol test their personnel without issue.
Who says there is any danger while using street drugs outside of work?
Countless illegal drugs have already created a softer image as a consequence of their continued exposure throughout the nation’s newspapers and television. Indeed, terminologies including “recreational cocaine use” have been shown to cause a significant deal of harm due to it misinforming the general public. For a significant proportion of individuals, cocaine as a drug is even more habit forming than heroin and can’t be used on a recreational basis without having major threat of dependency. Dependence aside, cocaine purity has reduced from a typical forty five percent cocaine content in 2004 to as low as about twenty five percent purity as of 2010 (with cocaine purity as low as 9% currently being reported). Even more worryingly, the chemicals used to pad out the cocaine often range from local anaesthetics, cancer-causing chemicals, cat worming chemicals, through to insecticides. The underlying truth is that you can never ever place confidence in a drug dealer.
In fact, substances formerly considered to be soft drugs frequently still carry dangers. In recent years in Great Britain, a shocking 92% of everyday people admitted for treatment for mental illness are heavy cannabis users. bearing this in mind, workplace drugs screening truly possesses the opportunity to take on wider social and health issues as it comes to be more widely implemented.
For more information on drug testing in the workplace as well as home drug screening kits, check out www.drug-aware.com
About the author: Christopher Evans is the Technical Director of Drug-Aware Ltd, a supplier of Drugs Information In The Workplace, drugs and alcohol testing devices, laboratory services together with alcohol and drug awareness training courses. He has taught literally thousands of delegates from hundreds of companies, the HM Prison Service, the British police and hospitals and GP surgeries throughout the United Kingdom.