MOST DRUG ABUSERS ARE FULL-TIME WORKERS

Seventy percent of all people who abuse drugs work full time, a U.S.
government report released yesterday shows - contradicting the image of drug
users as people on the fringe of society.

The report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA) shows that 80 percent of all people who abuse alcohol work full
time. It also shows that 7.7 percent of full-time workers age 18 to 49 admit
to having used illicit drugs in the past month. And there are 6.2 million
who abuse alcohol.

For the report, SAMHSA interviewed more than 24,000 people in 1997 and
concentrated on the 7,000 who were 18 to 49 and worked full time. They
compared their findings with those of a similar survey done in 1994.

They also found that workplace drug testing is on the increase - 44 percent
of those surveyed in 1994 said their employers had some sort of drug test at
hiring, and 49 percent said so in 1997.