Business moves against drugs - includes related article on signs of abuse

Nation's Business, Nov, 1989 by Donald C. Bacon

Business Moves Against Drugs

Vulnerability to the effects of substance abuse by workers has led thousands of companies to develop programs for drug-free workplaces.

The nation's drug problem hit home for William A. Stone not long ago when he found some marijuana cigarette butts in the parking lot of his 40-employee business in Louisville, Ky.

"We made such a big issue of it that now everybody here knows it is `adios' if you get caught with drugs," says Stone, president and owner of Louisville Plate Glass Co. "We put it officially in our work rules: Anybody caught with alcohol, drugs, or any mind-altering substance is absolutely dismissed." Stone is now "thinking about initiating" a formal drug program, including "a drug test for every hire."

Employers say it is often a single incident that helps them see for the first time how vulnerable their businesses are to the plague of substance abuse. Such awakening has led thousands of companies since the mid-1980s to develop their own policies and programs for a drug-free workplace.

"It's nothing short of phenomenal the extent to which employers have gotten religion on the drug issue in the last five years," says Mark A. de Bernardo, special counsel for domestic policy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and executive director of the Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace, a coalition of corporations that seeks to shape public debate over drug legislation.

The importance of business's role in the overall battle against drugs was underscored by President Bush in September. In announcing his anti-drug strategy, the president coupled a call for a drug-free workplace with a blunt warning to federal contractors to implement "tough but fair" drug policies for their employees or face losing their federal contracts.

"Businesses and employers must make it clear that drug use and employment are incompatible," Bush added in his report to Congress.

Observes de Bernardo: "Employers have a legitimate role in the war on drugs, not only as good corporate citizens of their communities but also because drug abuse affects their bottom line. They realize that the cost, quality, and amount of the goods and services they produce are directly related to whether or not they have drug abusers in the workplace."

Experts estimate that drug and alcohol abuse together cost the business community as much as $100 billion a year through increased absenteeism, added health-care costs, and accident rates that are as much as 10 times higher for abusers than for nonabusers.

Even so, and despite a wealth of evidence on the pervasiveness of drugs, surveys show that some employers still find it hard to accept the idea that substance abuse could thrive in their own businesses. In one recent survey of 265 corporate chief executive officers, 88 percent said they found "substance abuse to be a very significant problem in the nation today." But in the same survey, only 22 percent of the CEOs said they believe the misuse of drugs and alcohol is very significant in their own organizations.

Anthony J. Gajda, a principal with the employee-benefits consulting firm of William M. Meidinger Hansen Inc., which conducted the survey, attributes the apparent discrepancy in part to a reluctance in many businesses to confront the drug issue. "We think there is denial among organizations," Gajda says. "Nobody wants to admit it's a problem in their own company." Nonetheless, he adds, "I think we're beginning to see a real improvement in perceptions of the drug problem among employers and workers in this country. Employers are beginning to take a more aggressive attitude."

So far, most private-sector activity against drugs in the workplace has been led by the large corporations. Nearly all of the nation's 500 largest corporations have adopted some type of drug program.

Midsized and smaller businesses have responded more slowly, perhaps partly for the reasons Gajda cites but also because they often lack the incentives and the resources to implement full-scale anti-drug programs. Programs can be expensive and time-consuming. And they must be skillfully shaped and administered to be effective while protecting employee concerns, particularly where testing is involved.

Private-sector drug policies vary widely. They range from comprehensive programs--including educational campaigns, pre-employment and employee testing, and employee assistance--down to concise formal statements of company policy regarding drugs in the workplace. Such statements, added to company work rules and communicated to all employees, in their simplest form may merely make clear that the company expects employees to be free of drugs at all times and that those who fail to comply with the rule are subject to disciplinary action and possibly dismissal.

"There's really no excuse for a company not to have a drug policy, even if it is only one sentence long," says de Bernardo. "Having a company policy against drugs is in everybody's interest." De Bernardo is the author of Drug Abuse in the Workplace: An Employer's Guide for Prevention, which provides information and advice for dealing with workplace drug issues.