Drugs in the workplace are at their highest levels in a decade
Thirty years after the Drug-Free Workplace Act was passed, a recent study done by Quest Diagnostics revealed that more employees are testing positive for drugs in their system. The company has been conducting the same study every year since 1988, that year yielded the highest rate ever recorded at 13.6 percent. In 2017, 4.2 percent of employees tested positive for illegal drug use, the highest rate since 2008. Fortunately, positive results for prescription opiates have decreased dramatically since 2016, although the study showed that the number of people using cocaine in certain parts of the country has increased significantly every year for the last five years. Double digit-increases in the percentage of employees who tested positive for cocaine have been seen in Nebraska (91 percent), Nevada (25 percent), Maryland (22 percent), and Wisconsin (13 percent) for the year 2016-2017. Moreover, increases in the use of Methamphetamine were found among employees across the country. A researcher for Quest Diagnostics said that geographical variations and changing trends pose a challenge for employers to anticipate the “drug of choice” for their workforce, making it difficult for them to focus their drug prevention programs in the most appropriate way.
See "Drugs in the workplace are at their highest levels in a decade", Gene Marks, The Washington Post, May 23, 2018