Workplace Drug Policies

Definitions of Substance Abuse in the Work Setting

At the outset, it is important to address the issue of ambiguous definition. What constitutes substance abuse in the work setting? This answer is somewhat clearer with the legal drug, alcohol, than with illicit drugs. As is well known, alcohol use is forbidden in most workplaces, and those who use alcohol while on the job or in some relatively immediate timeframe before coming to work are rule-breakers. On occasion, alcohol use before or during work leads to serious accidents in the workplace, and there can be no argument that preventing any injurious accident should be a workplace goal.

Alcohol dependence develops over a period of time, and while extensive data on the matter are rare, many anecdotes suggest that on-the-job drinking or intoxication among alcohol-dependent employees is relatively rare, usually occurring after a long period of visibly deteriorating job performance. Thus, the alcohol-using rule-breaking employees and the alcohol-dependent employees are different groups of employees and are the subjects of different policies. There is some overlap between the two groups in some circumstances, and this generalization about the independence of deviant drinkers and alcohol-dependent persons is but a frame within which to understand policies.

This alcohol-linked ambiguity is modest compared with that associated with illicit drugs. Because of their illegality, psychoactive substances such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine cannot be used, only abused. Although there is a generalized societal belief that many people use marijuana without serious life consequences, there is no legally or medically acceptable definition of legitimate marijuana use. Indeed, great social controversy roils around whether anyone should be permitted to use marijuana for its very narrow medical applications. In at least one instance, a court has ruled that an employer has the right to fire an employee who has used medically prescribed marijuana.

Beliefs that are more diffuse and vague are associated with drugs such as powdered cocaine and ecstasy, but again, any use is legally abuse. There is even greater ambiguity as to when abuse becomes dependence. This ambiguity increases as one moves into the more marginalized drugs such as heroin, crack, and methamphetamine. Of significance is the fact that the response in the workplace has been to define any evidence of use on a yes-no criterion and regardless of the drug in evidence, to treat drug-positives in an equivalent manner, at least in principle.

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