DRUGS IN THE FOREST DISCUSSED

B.C. Forest Safety Council official MaryAnne Arcand showed a video
clip to the audience at the opening of the B.C. Council on Substance
Abuse's conference in Prince George on Thursday.

She asked the audience to count how many basketball passes the three
young women and three young men in the clip made. The answer was
irrelevant, because when the clip was finished, she asked how many
people saw anything unusual. Only about half did. The remainder were
surprised to see a person in a gorilla suit walk through the
basketball passers in the middle of the clip.

The point was obvious: You only see what you are looking for.

It's also a theme in substance abuse in the workplace, Arcand told
the audience of more than 50 managers and workers. "You don't want to
know they are impaired, not safe. You don't want to look at it," she said.

In the sector that Arcand works in -- the forest sector, and
specifically the logging and hauling sector -- she said there is even
an accepted culture of work hard, play hard that ignores substance abuse.

She said it can be hard for managers to see that the culture exists
and that they are promoting it. She recounted how a business owner
had explained to her how he had a problem establishing a dry
treeplanting camp, so kept the workers in camp on a Friday night and
bought the beer and pizza himself. The owner didn't see this as
promoting an unhealthy and unsafe atmosphere, she said.

Arcand says she's also been to conferences -- filled with industry
leaders -- where alcohol is served at receptions in the middle of the day.

Even if the attendees at the conference are driving home the next day
and are hungover, there is a safety concern, noted Arcand.

It's why awareness must be raised to "wake up the sleeping giant," she said.

Arcand didn't provide specific substance-abuse figures for the
province or Canada, but pointed to U.S. figures from 2005 from the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration showing the
use of illicit drugs as high as 15 to 17 per cent of the workforce in
sectors like food services, construction, mining and energy. She said
she expected the figures would be similar for the forest sector.

Substance use has played a role in some forest sector fatalities in
north and central B.C.

Between 2003 and 2006 marijuana use was listed as a contributing
factor by the B.C. coroner's office in the deaths of four logging
truck drivers and a faller. Prescription drug use was listed as a
factor in another logging truck death.

Central Interior Logging Association manager Rick Publicover said a
lot of attention needs to be paid to increasing awareness, even
though some companies are already dealing with the issue of substance
abuse effectively. There are others that are still in the mode of
having never thought about it, he said.

Publicover noted the issue is a complex one as problems outside the
workplace, perhaps at home, can spill into work, and vice versa,
fueling substance abuse.

There are some things companies can put in place to help deal with
the problem: a policy, supervisor training, awareness and education
and an employee-family assistance plan, said Publicover, who attended
the conference's opening day at the Civic Centre.

The CILA has a health benefits program for its member companies that
now includes an employee-family assistance plan, he noted.

The conference continues today with a focus on drug-testing.