SMOKING A JOINT MAY COST YOU YOUR JOB

Recreational drug users who smoke the occasional cannabis joint at weekends
and tipplers who have a couple of pints at lunchtime could be putting their
careers at risk.

A growing number of employers are now resorting to drug testing their
workers and senior executives. They have been staggered by the results of
the tests: it is believed between three and 5% of Irish employees who are
subjected to drug screening in the workplace are testing positive for
illegal drugs.

With the dominance of multi-nationals in our domestic economy, we may be
following an American trend: in many workplaces in the US, drug testing is a
matter of routine.

Traces of cannabis on a Monday morning and even alcohol after lunch can lead
to instant dismissal.

Most multi-nationals contacted here are reluctant to talk about their drug
and alcohol policies; but the agencies carrying out the tests says drug
testing is common among computer, pharmaceutical, banking, oil and transport
firms.

One company Claymon laboratories is processing over 500 employee drug tests
every week. Employee drug testing is also carried out in labs at Beaumont
Hospital and in the Blackrock Clinic on behalf of private companies.

Critics call this trend towards drug testing Narcotic Puritanism and see it
as an unnecessary interference into a person's private life by nosy bosses
who are taking on the habits of Big Brother.

Is it any business of an employer to find out what workers get up to away
from the office?

It may create an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, but this insistence that
employees are squeaky clean when they turn up for work has its defenders in
surprising quarters. In America, unions support drug testing, largely for
safety reasons: if a worker turns up stoned or drunk on the factory floor,
it is his colleagues rather than his boss who face the greatest risk.

Most tests carried out by employers look for Cannabis, Amphetamines,
Ecstasy, Opiates, Cocaine and Barbiturates. Alcohol is also included in many
tests. The employees are generally asked to give urine samples, but a saliva
test is also being developed.

Aer Rianta recently introduced drug testing as part of the medical
examination. All new recruits are tested for illegal drugs before they start
working for the company. The test was first introduced for fire crews, but
has now been extended to all new employees.

"The test is done at the medical centre in the airport," says Flan Clune,
spokesman for Aer Rianta. "If it is found that someone has been taking
illegal drugs, they will not be taken on."

The company does not do random drug tests. However, if it is suspected that
someone has been taking illegal drugs, a supervisor or manager can call for
a medical examination to be carried out. This includes a drug test.

"If we find that an employee has a problem with persistent substance abuse,
we have an on-going support programme," says Aer Rianta Flan Clune. "The
Employment Assistance Programme can be used to help out."

Pilots with Ryanair and Aer Lingus are also drug tested every year as part
of their medical examination. Once they are past 40, they are tested twice a
year.

A number of private companies here have started carrying out random tests on
employees. Workers and executives can be tested suddenly, any time during
working hours.

The laboratories that are hired to analyse these tests prefer to keep the
names of their clients confidential.

"The number of employee tests that we are dealing with is doubling every
year," said Anya Pierce of Beaumont Hospital's toxicology unit.

"Random testing is bound to become more common as we follow the American
example. Generally the tests are carried out by doctors or nurses who take
urine samples and these are sent to the laboratory for analysis."

Anya Pierce says 5% of employees who are screened at her laboratory test
positive for illegal drugs. At Claymon laboratories, the figure is 3-4%.

The majority of positive samples showed up traces of cannabis.

Cannabis may be considered a soft drug, but dope smokers are in the greatest
danger of being found out at employee drug tests.

Alcohol will be out of the bloodstream within 24 hours, Ecstasy and
amphetamines within 48, and cocaine and opiates within 72. But cannabis,
depending upon the purity, strength and quantity, can leave traces for over
60 days.

Dope smokers can therefore fail drug tests long after they have taken
Cannabis and lose jobs as a result.

Anya Pierce says: "There are people who simply walk out of their medical
examinations when they discover that they are being tested for drugs. Other
people ring us up at the laboratory. They tell us they have smoked Cannabis
and ask us whether it is likely that they will fail the test."

As recent disputes over drug-taking in sport have shown, the whole area of
testing in the workplace is bound to be controversial. It appears to be an
inexact science.

When a person's livelihood depends on the result it is vital that the
procedures are correct and precise. But the area is largely unregulated and
the standards and limits for positive and negative tests are not uniform.

Anya Pierce of the Beaumont Toxicology Unit acknowledges that there can be
false positives. The limits for a positive result for opiates had to be
raised, because it was found that employees could test positive after eating
poppy seed bread.

Solicitor Michael Finucane, vice-chairman of the Irish Council for Civil
Liberties, says drug-testing in the workplace is full of legal grey areas:
"What do you do about a drug that may be illegal in one place, but is
legally available elsewhere. The cases involving sports stars such as Butch
Reynolds (the American sprinter who reversed a drugs ban) show that the
tests could be wrong."

Michael Finucane also warns that drug testing can prove counter-productive.
In prisons in Britain, the authorities were forced to abandon random drug
tests, because they found that inmates were switching from Cannabis, which
leaves traces for a long time, to harder drugs, which are more difficult to
detect.

Illegal drugs are not the only concern of employers. The arrival of
multi-nationals in large numbers particularly the computer companies is
changing management attitudes to alcohol consumption during work hours.

"A lot of attitudes to drinking have changed radically in the past few
years," says Maura Russell, director of the Dublin Rutland Centre. The
centre specialises in treating alcoholics and drug addicts.

"There is much less tolerance for lunchtime drink ing and also drinking
after work; and a greater willingness to sort out drink problems through
Employee Assistance Programmes."

Companies such as Intel and Hewlett Packard have strict no-alcohol policies.
Even when they are entertaining clients at the Intel plant in Leixlip in
Co.Kildare, or holding receptions, alcohol is strictly forbidden.

Intel spokesman Liam Cahill said the company did not carry out drug or
alcohol tests. The complete ban on alcohol at the plant was mainly for
safety and cost reasons.

While there may be less tolerance for drinking during work hours nowadays,
Maura Russell of the Rutland Centre has noticed a marked increase in
drug-taking among professional people.

"There has been a noticeable increase in drug use. We are seeing more and
more middle-class business people who have a cocaine habit. Ecstasy is also
very common and we are even seeing well-off people who take heroin."

"Ecstasy and cocaine are rampant in third level colleges," says anti-drug
campaigner Grainne Kenny, director of EURAD (Europe Against Drugs) "Many of
these young people are bringing their drug habit with them into the
workplace.

"Any move towards testing should be welcomed," says Grainne Kenny. "If an
employee is stupefied, he or she can be a danger to colleagues. It is a very
important safety issue."