DRUG TESTS MORE LIKELY IN WEST

B.C. And Alberta Companies Most Likely To Require Employees To Undergo Tests

Workers in British Columbia and Alberta are more likely to face
employer-ordered drug testing than employees who work in any other
province across Canada, according to a University of Victoria study.

The study, led by Dr. Scott Macdonald, the assistant director of
research at UVic's Centre for Addictions Research for B.C., surveyed
564 human resource managers across Canada in 2003.

Each manager, who was responsible for 100 or more employees,
completed a questionnaire that revealed that:

- - More than 10 per cent of the companies surveyed had drug testing programs.

- - Those programs were nearly twice as likely to occur in companies
that had a U.S. head office (18.2 per cent as opposed to 9.2 per cent
if there was no U.S. head office) and they were most prevalent among
companies in safety-sensitive sectors including primary resource
industries such as mining and forestry; transportation,
communications and utilities and construction.

- - Resource-rich Alberta and B.C. topped the drug testing numbers with
Alberta leading in drug testing at 25 per cent and B.C. coming second
at 17.9 per cent.

- - If you want to dodge the drug tests, consider moving to Ontario
which had the lowest rate of drug testing at 4.6 per cent.

Macdonald said the drug testing programs are more ideological than
evidence-based.

"Urine tests detect drug users among employees, but the problem is
that the tests can't measure or identify current impairment," he said
in a news release announcing the findings. "They can only be used to
identify past use.

"For example, marijuana can be detected for up to 28 days, which
means that a worker who tests positive may have used it 28 days ago,
but it doesn't mean that person is unsafe in the workplace today.
Yet, the employee may be subject to disciplinary actions."

In other findings the study showed that the majority, 67.8 per cent
of companies, had employee assistance programs but they were not
distributed evenly across sectors, with government most likely to
offer them and the construction sector least likely to have such programs.