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Why Drug Test
It is often asked: “Why do drug testing?” Please consider the following:
- According to the latest Household Survey 74.3% of current, admitted drug users are employed.
- Up to 40 percent of industrial fatalities and 47 percent of industrial injuries can be linked to alcohol consumption and alcoholism.
- National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) estimates that 38% - 50% of all work-related accidents are drug or alcohol involved.
- 19% of those killed on the job in 1998 had drugs and/or alcohol present in postmortem toxicology report.
- Employers with drug testing have experienced a 51% reduction in workplace injury rates within two years of implementing a drug-testing program. A recent study showed that the average company sampled that has drug testing in place experienced an 11.41% reduction in workers’ compensation experience-rating modification factor. At the same time, companies that did not implement drug-testing programs saw no decline in their workers’ compensation experience-rating modification factor.
Additionally, we are seeing an increase in claims against management personnel for their failure to prevent injuries stemming from drug/alcohol use in the workplace. In a recent Ohio case a manager was hit with a $1.6 million judgment when one of his employees caused a death at work.
A manager’s best protection from such claims is a company drug test policy and the choice to test rather than to ignore the problem. |
