WHY WE ARE A DRUG FREE WORKPLACE

A workers’ compensation insurance company will have the legal backing to deny a workers’ compensation claim if an employee fails or refuses to take a post- accident drug or alcohol test. A company will also have the legal backing to have unemployment benefits denied if an employee is dismissed in violation of the program. In order to qualify for the credit a company would be required to conduct pre-employment drug testing on all new hires and post-accident testing on employees who are injured due to a work related accident.

Based upon 20 years of administrating drug test results we have come up with the following statistics. Note- statistics will be skewed due to the inability to calculate in refusals to test. This inability to include refusals to test, which are considered to be positive, are the reason for the percentage range provided.

  • Approximately 18-22% of all post-accident tests are non-negative. This means that they are either positive, adulterated with, tampered with or there is a prescription medication involved that showed up on the test. The legitimate prescriptions would be reported to the employer as negative once they are confirmed
  • Approximately 20% of the positive post-accident test results are positive for alcohol at a .04 level or higher.

The following statistics are from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

  • Approximately 70-75% of drug and alcohol abusers are employed.
  • Drug using employees are- 2.5 times more to have absences of 8 days or more, 2.2 times more likely to request early dismissal or time off, 3 times more likely to be late for work, 5 times more likely to file a workers’ compensation claim, 5 times more likely to use health insurance coverage, 3.5 times more likely to be involved in workplace accidents, 10 times more likely to miss work.