B.C. SECOND ONLY TO ALBERTA FOR DRUG TESTING

British Columbia workers are more likely to be tested for using
illegal drugs than workers in any other province except for Alberta,
according to University of Victoria research published in the Canadian
Journal of Public Health.

Scott MacDonald, one of five researchers involved in the survey,
attributed the volume of drug-testing in the two provinces to a larger
number of workers employed by companies with U.S. head offices.

Some form of drug testing is done at 25.4 per cent of Alberta
workplaces and 17.9 per cent of those in B.C. In Ontario, 4.6 per cent
of workplaces conduct some form of drug-testing, said MacDonald. The
Canada-wide average is roughly 10 per cent.

MacDonald's group of researchers surveyed 565 human resources managers
responsible for at least 100 employees each. He found that worksites
that are part of companies that have international head offices in the
U.S. were almost twice as likely to test employees for illegal drug
use, than those that were part of Canadian organizations.