MORE FIRMS PUSH DRINK AND DRUGS TESTS

PAUL GASCOIGNE, the English footballer, knows it and a long line of
film-star patients at the Betty Ford Clinic do too: drink or drugs and
work do not mix. It is also the message that European bosses are
starting to push to their workers.

Workplace drug testing is already a booming business in the United
States. Since 1987 the practice has grown by more than 277 percent,
creating an industry worth $350 million.

More than 88 per cent of US firms run some form of drug-testing
regime and 40 per cent enforce random testing. Half of the county's
chief executives believe that alcohol and other drugs cost them
between one and 10 per cent of the payroll.

In Europe, the sector is still in its infancy, but Britain and Germany
are leading the way in introducing workplace testing programmes.
Flushing out drugs in the workplace can be costly with a basic urine
test starting at about UKP30 ($50) per sample. But that has to be
weighed against a total bill to industry resulting from alcohol and
illicit drug-taking estimated to be around UKP3 billion a year, says
the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence (ISDD) in Britain.

Although difficult to measure, drug abuse is estimated to cost UKP800
million a year, with 15 per cent of large British firms reporting drug
use as a problem at work. Drink remains the major problem, however,
with 35 per cent of large firms saying they suffer the consequences.
Up to 14 million working days a year are thought to be lost through
excess alcohol.

The sector in Britain was given a boost earlier this year when the
government spelt out its drugs policy, appointing a drug tsar and
encouraging companies to have a drugs and alcohol policy.

Since then, says Dr Dave Osselton, business manager for UK- based
Forensic Science Services (FSS), the number of British-based companies
asking for help has risen sharply. Construction and transport - where
safety is a big issue - are the main industries concerned, but so are
the city of London's banks and traders, worried that a drugged-up
dealer can do a lot of damage on the stockmarket floor.

Germany has seen testing for drink and drug abuse grow rapidly in the
past two to three years, while central Europe is also showing an
interest. However, despite the increase in workplace testing seen in
Britain and Germany, the figures can be slightly misleading. Many of
the firms operating workplace testing have American parents and are
merely following US policy.

The American zeal to flush drugs out of the workplace is not as strong
in the majority of European countries. The Netherlands, Denmark and
Sweden are against the practice, seeing it as an infringement of
privacy. "Dutch banks won't touch drug testing. It's against their
culture," says Dr Gareth Spire, chief executive of City Medical
Services, a London-based health clinic and testing outfit.

"In France, there is a very large resistance from trade unions," says
Michel Craplet, medical adviser for Association Nationale de
Prevention de l'Alcoolisme.

Although European unions are generally supportive of workplace drug
testing within some industry sectors, they argue that companies should
also take a close look at how workloads can increase stress levels,
possibly leading to alcohol and drug use.

Evidence from the US suggests that workplace drug testing does act as
a deterrent. The number of positives is decreasing year-on-year. In
1988, the SmithKline Beecham (SB) drug-testing index gave an annual
"positivity rate" for the US of 13.6 percent. For the first six months
of this year, with more than 2.7 million tests performed, the figure
was 4.9 percent.

However, the SB index also reveals a disturbing trend - the number of
employees trying to cheat the tests. In the first 10 weeks of
screening, says SB, approximately 400 job applicants tested positive
for nitrites, which are used as masking agents to prevent the
detection of drug use.

Test services operating within the UK estimate that, on average,
between 10 and 15 per cent of all tests are positive. "We haven't come
up with a set of results that hasn't had a positive test in the first
set of the testing of the sample," says Osselton of FSS. City Medical
Services, which has been testing in the city since l992, agrees with
the positive figure and points out that this has remained fairly static.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry