-Caveat Lector- >From IntelelctualCapital.CoM {{<Begin>}} Issue of the Week: Business Is Good by Bob Kolasky Thursday, October 14, 1999 Comments: 80 posts Peter O'Connell is proud to tell you he works in a "growth industry." A number of his company's clients are nursing homes. His company provides services to companies chasing government contracts and to a major luxury-boat builder. And it frequently does business in schools. O'Connell is in the booming high-tech field, correct? Or maybe he sells pharmaceuticals? Perhaps, insurance? Think again. O'Connell's rapidly growing endeavor is Rapid Drug Testing {{http://www.rapiddrug.com/}} , a drug-screening business located in the Florida Keys. For $22 a test, Rapid Drug Testing provides large businesses and small, as well as schools, a full-service drug-screening process in order to test potential employees, full-time workers and student-athletes, among others. The test, according to O'Connell, Rapid Drug's vice president, "is just like a home- pregnancy test." The drug testing industry is booming It tests for marijuana, cocaine, opiates, PCP, amphetamines, methamphetamines, barbituates, benzodiazepines and TCL. Results can be ascertained in three minutes, and in the event of a positive -- which O'Connell says occurs 3% to 5% of the time in the workplace -- Rapid Drug will provide access to a laboratory to confirm the test results, as well as to a medical-review officer who will determine whether the drug use is of the illicit nature. As with much of the drug-testing industry, O'Connell's business is booming. "Employers are motivated by the bottom line," O'Connell. says. "It makes hard- dollar sense to have a drug-free workplace." He offers two reasons: First, insurance companies that offer workmen's compensation insurance give a significant discount to companies that have a testing policy in place. Second, and more obviously, workers who are not on drugs are more effective -- and drug tests keep workers off drugs. Therefore, to O'Connell and others in this industry, drug testing is an essential part of being in business. Making the grade in the workplace Businesses seem to agree. Spurred by claims (some say unsubstantiated) that drug use costs businesses more than $100 billion a year in lost productivity, many companies are embracing the practice of workplace drug testing. The American Management Association reports that, as of 1996, about 81% of their 70,000 member companies had testing programs. And the recently released study, "Worker Drug Use and Workplace Policies and Programs," compiled by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration {{http://www.samhsa.gov/OAS/NHSDA/A-11/TOC.htm}} (SAMHSA) using data from the 1994 and 1997 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse found that, in 1997, 49% of workers ages 18 to 49, reported being tested (up from 44% in 1994). Workplace drug tests generally come in four types. The most prevalent are drug tests as a condition of employment or that occur as part of the interview or hiring process, in which corporations subject potential employees to drug screening to ensure that they are not regular drug users. Another frequently used approach to testing is post-incident testing, when, following an accident, workplaces force the employee to undergo a drug test. Less frequent, but still common, are random drug tests. And the rarest of drug tests are those for cause, i.e. when an employee's performance has diminished and an employer, suspecting drug use, tests the employee. The testing regime, in all four forms, appears to be working. The SAMHSA survey found that "there is a correlation of the increased frequency of drug testing and the decreased presence of drug use," says Dr. Westley Clark, the director of SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. Specifically, according to the survey, drug use among full-time workers ages 18 to 49 has dropped by more than half since 1985. That year, 17.5% of those surveyed were using illicit drugs. By 1997, that number was down to 7.7%. Clearly, something happened to cause such a significant shift, and the most logical explanation is the proliferation of drug testing. In 1987, according to the American Management Association report, 21.5% of member companies had testing programs; by 1996, it was 81.1%. Patrick Dixon, the British author of The Truth on Drugs, has written that the rush for employers to test their employees has contributed a "spectacular success" to America's war on drugs. But success is relative, and not everyone agrees with Dixon's assertion that drug testing in the workplace has succeeded spectacularly. Drug use might be down, but at what cost? Is it worth the price of trust between employer and employee? Is it worth the loss of the civil liberties of employees -- drug users or not? Is it worth the financial burden it places on corporations? And if so, should the use of drug tests continue to proliferate in other aspects of American society? A misguided practice Lewis Maltby has a simple answer to all those questions: no. Maltby is the author of a recently released study by the American Civil Liberties Union, "Drug Testing: A Bad Investment," {{http://www.aclu.org/news/1999/n090199a.html}} In it, he argued that employers who are so gung-ho about using drug tests are making a mistake. "Employers are drug testing their employees because they think it will make the workplace safer and more productive," Maltby says. "There is no evidence that it does so." Maltby argues that the proliferation of drug testing is built on a completely misguided assumption. "Because drug testing does not measure what we think it measures [drug use in the workplace], it is not particularly effective," he says. "All a positive drug test means is that somewhere, sometime, an employee was using drugs in the past two weeks -- and that was probably offsite on the weekend. There is no evidence that such an employee is any less safe, or productive, on Monday morning." Maltby released the ACLU study in the hopes that it would influence businesses to rethink their policies, but he acknowledges that doing so will be a tough mission. Growth industry, part II Libertarian author/humorist P.J. O'Rourke once wrote, "If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs; we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." In the absence of such a test being developed, however, it appears that businesses have settled on the deployment of drug tests to curtail troubles. And U.S. citizens as a whole seem quite content to sacrifice some of their privacy for the added benefits they perceive workplace drug tests will bring them. There is little outcry over workplace testing, as evidenced by the SAMHSA survey. "Our research found that opposed to a few years ago, people are more receptive to working for companies with drug-test policies, even drug users," Clark says. "Instead of debating drug testing, users instead are trying to find a way to beat the system." If Clark is right, then perhaps the drug-screening business is not the only growth industry associated with this debate. If you search for the words "drug testing" at Yahoo!, you will find that in addition to a myriad of related information, a company has bought the rights to display banner ads associated with those keywords. The company? Urine Luck, which offers a "complete line of detoxifying products." Apparently, businesses that can help individuals beat drug tests have a strong future as well. Bob Kolasky is the managing editor of IntellectualCapital.com. His e-mail address is [EMAIL PROTECTED] {{<End>}} {{<Begin>}} Drawing the Line on Drug Testing by Ethan A. Nadelmann Thursday, October 14, 1999 http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/issue310/item6817.asp Toward Drug-free Workplaces by Mark A. de Bernardo Thursday, October 14, 1999 http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/Issue310/item6864.asp {{<End>}} A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." --Buddha + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." 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