Important Drug Abuse at the Workplace Statistics and Facts
There are manysignicfant facts and statistics that need to be taken into consideration regarding drug abuse and statistics in the workplace. Here are a few of them.
- In Some Industries as much as 12.3% of Employees Abuse Drugs and 15.7% of Employees Abuse Alcohol According to the White Office Drug Policy Desk : Construction and mining jobs are particularly susceptible to these levels, partially because of the higher concentration of men in their typical workforce. Many companies are unaware that a large percentage of drug and alcohol abusers are actually in their employ and this is ultimately affecting their workplace productivity levels. This is one of the many reasons that alcohol and drug testing are an important part of any workplace and are becoming more common.
- According to SAMSHA, many younger workers between the ages of 18 and 25 use drugs and 9.3 million fulltime employees have abused drugs in the last month: This shows that while drug use may not always be clearly evident, it is often present in employees’ lives on and off the job site. This is especially true in younger employees who are just beginning to be employed and are more likely to use such substances in their free time. While it may seem that such use outside of work would not and should not affect the workplace, it often does, causing workplace injury, accidents and extraneous sick days for many employers.
- Illegal drug users between the ages of 18 and 64 are full time employees; that’s 57.4% of drug abusers according to the Bureau of Justice: Many assumptions are made about substance abusers which simply aren’t true. Many assume they are more likely to be unemployed, socially inept, mentally inferior and low income. The fact is that most substance abusers are middle class, highly intelligent, socially active and otherwise law abiding. Maintaining a job is important to a user for many reasons, among them consistent income to afford those substances, access to employer and fellow employee items that can be stolen and used for profit, access to other substance users who can either act as sources or who may purchase them from the employee.
- For every $1 spent on drug abuse prevention, there is a $20 return on that investment according to the Maine Office of Substance Abuse: This is in large part due to the reduction of workplace waste both in time and in productivity that come with substance abuse. By having a drug program and investing in the education and drug testing of employees many employers are able to improve the productivity and employee absentee rate through prevention and through drug counseling or termination for positive drug test results. This also makes an impact on the health of employees as many who abuse substances are prone to higher rates of illness and more serious health conditions like heart, liver and lung disease. Employers who invest in a comprehensive drug testing and education program help prevent loss of productivity, improve overall employee well-being, reduce the risk of workplace accidents and injury and reduce the rate of substance abuse among their employees.
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December 28th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
[...] Dec 28, 2009 Author: Dani | Filed under: filibuster I’ve been doing some reading about Drug Abuse at Workplace Statistics, because I’m going to have to take a drug test before I’m allowed to begin clinical [...]