Substance Abuse in the Workplace Fact Sheet<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nSubstance use and abuse among workers<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Substance abuse by employees results in:
\u2022 Higher health care expenses for injuries and illnesses;
\u2022 Higher rates of absenteeism;
\u2022 Reductions in job productivity and performance;
\u2022 More workers\u2019 compensation and disability claims; and
\u2022 Safety and other risks for employers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Employees with substance abuse issues often:
\u2022 Fail to fulfill major role obligations at work, school or home.
\u2022 Use substances in situations where it is physically hazardous (e.g. driving an automobile or operating a machine
when impaired by substance use).
\u2022 Have recurrent substance-related legal or financial problems.
\u2022 Continue to use substances despite persistent social or interpersonal problems that are a result of the
substance use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th edition). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Substance use and abuse is a concern for employers. Most drug users, binge and heavy drinkers, and people
with substance use disorders are employed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Of the 19.9 million current illicit drug users aged 18 or older in 2011, 13.1 million (65.7 percent) were employed
either full or part time.
\u2022 The rate of current alcohol use was 64.3 percent for full-time employed adults aged 18 or older in 2011.
\u2022 Most binge and heavy alcohol users were employed in 2011. Among 56.5 million adult binge drinkers, 42.1 million
(74.4 percent) were employed either full or part time. Among 15.5 million heavy drinkers, 11.6 million (74.9
percent) were employed.
\u2022 About half of the adults aged 18 or older with substance dependence or abuse were employed full time in 2011.
Of the 18.9 million adults classified with dependence or abuse, 9.8 million (51.8 percent) were employed full time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Substance use and abuse is not necessarily limited to after work hours, leading to the risk of impairment on the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 An estimated 3.1 percent of employed adults actually used illicit drugs before reporting to work or during work
hours at least once in the past year, with about 2.9 percent working while under the influence of an illicit drug.
\u2022 An estimated 1.8 percent of employed adults consumed alcohol before coming to work, and 7.1 percent drank
alcohol during the workday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Studies on Alcohol<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
…Celebrate DRUG-FREE WORK WEEK, OCTOBER 13 – 18, 2014 with National Drug Screening and the National Drug-Free Workplace Alliance… Drug-Free Work Week was initiated by the U.S. Department of Labor as a cooperative agreement focused on improving safety and health through drug-free workplace programs. The first Drug-Free Work Week was observed in 2006, and in subsequent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"51314,51218,51407,51080,51567,50878","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldrugscreening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldrugscreening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldrugscreening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldrugscreening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldrugscreening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldrugscreening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldrugscreening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldrugscreening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldrugscreening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationaldrugscreening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}