Drug and Alcohol Screening in the Workplace: Benefits and Challenges

RUNNING HEAD: EPIDEMIOLOGY 1
Epidemiology
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EPIDEMIOLOGY 2
INTRODUCTION
Different companies have different policies that govern their employees. Such policies
include regular screening of employees for drug as well as alcohol use (Bertholet et al., 2014).
Some of the state laws as well as company policies recommend this to be done prior to
employment while other recommend this to be done after employment so that there is monitoring
of the employees (Edvardsen, Moan, Christophersen, & Gjerde, 2015). There are different tests
that can be used to screen employees. Some of the notable tests however include urine drug tests,
blood drug tests, the hair drugs test, breath alcohol tests, saliva drug testing and finally the sweat
drug screens.
A blood drug test is used to screen illegal drugs among the employees. This test seeks to
determine the presence of illegal drugs in blood at the time it is drawn. However, the blood tests
are not commonly used as compared to the urine tests (Erdmann, Werner, Hugli, & Yersin,
2015). The reason is because when using a blood test, the remains of the illegal drug does not
remain in the body after the effects of the drug have subsided. Studies therefore recommend the
urinalysis test to be used always unless under extreme cases (Hoffman, 2016). The blood test can
also be used at the expense of urinalysis when the aim of the screening test is to find out legal
intoxication.
There are different drugs that are usually screened amongst different employees. The
most common ones however include the amphetamines, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines,
opiates, nicotine and finally alcohol (Maughan, Bachhuber, Mitra, & Starrels, 2015). Depending
on the state law, the screening tests can be conducted before employment or randomly. The
random tests are done to employees who hold sensitive dockets. Screening can also be done after

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an on job accident or injury (McHugh, Edwards, Jamison, Cornelius, & Weiss, 2015). Screening
can also be done if the employer is suspicious with the conduct of the employees.
There are different reasons that warrant employers to conduct the drug and alcohol
screening tests (McRae et al., 2015). One of the reasons is to inhibit the employees from using
certain drugs that the employer feels may alter their productivity within the organization. The
drug and alcohol screening tests can be done to avoid problems of reduced productivity at the
workplace and they are also done to avoid hiring employees that use illegal drugs such as
marijuana (Nagpal, Heiman, & Haymond, 2017)Screening tests are also carried out to refer
certain employees who are in need of help regarding drug and alcohol abuse. Regular screening
would also maintain a very safe working environment and that is why employers implement the
regular screening (Nobles, Vilankar, Wu, & Barnes, 2015). Other reasons as to why drug and
alcohol screening tests are done include minimizing the likelihood of legal claims due to
employee impairment and protecting the general public. Finally, drug and alcohol screening is
done to comply certain laws of the state.
Different drugs affect different people in different ways. There are different factors that
determine the amount of time a drug can remain detectable in the blood and the urine (Phillips et
al., 2015). One of the factors is the drugs half-life which is amount of time needed for the body
to breakdown half of the quantity of the drug (Pidd & Roche, 2014). Other notable factors
include the hydration of the client, how frequent the drug is used and finally the route of
injection.
When using the blood test, the detection period is very short since majority of the drugs
usually leave the body through urine. When using the urine test, it is possible to detect the drug
after four days of exposure (Price, 2013). Chronic use of marijuana can however be detected in

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the urine for even up to six months from the last exposure .Other drugs such as the MDMA and
the methamphetamines can stay in the body for only two days (Smith & Davidson, 2014).
Cocaine can be detected after four days while Diazepam and other drugs with long half-life can
stay in the body for long periods.
There are different issues that arise from the screening of drugs and alcohol such as the
false positives and legal issues. False positives is the greatest worry while undertaking the
screening tests (Steiker, 2018). In this case, the client is therefore supposed to provide all the
complete prescriptions such over the counter as well as herbal medicines used. This is because
some substances such as poppy seeds as well as dextromethorphan have been attributed to false
positive with opiates (Taskinen et al., 2017). All employees for the federal, state and finally
private employees should be legally tested and this is possible since the state laws are same to
the federal statutes. However, the screening can be restricted in those that have already been
offered the job.
QUESTION 1
Organizations experience different challenges. One of the biggest challenges according to
studies is alcohol and drug abuse .Several studies have been conducted and established that
excessive consumption of alcohol is associated with different problems (Waehrer, Miller,
Hendrie, & Galvin, 2016). It leads to both mental and physical harm to the workers who take part
in the habit. There is an organization with 3000 workers planning to conduct a monthly screening
of workers. This program has both disadvantages and advantages that would be explained to the
CEO of the organization.