Battling Drugs on the Job

By Janice Castro

The newsroom staff at the Kansas City Star and Times was in an uproar last week over a memo from Publisher James Hale. Responding to a suggestion from Thomas Murphy, chairman of Capital Cities/ABC, the New York City-based owners of the papers, Hale told employees that drug-sniffing dogs might be used at the Missouri papers as part of a company-wide program to fight narcotics abuse.

After heated protests, however, Hale reconsidered and proposed instead to create an advisory committee of managers and employees to "free the workplace of drugs." In a separate memo to all Capital Cities workers, Murphy acknowledged the "distress and confusion" that had been sparked by the plan to bring in dogs. But he stressed his determination to move against drugs, telling his employees, "We absolutely cannot, and will not, tolerate drug trafficking, drug use or drug possession in the workplace."

What may have seemed a little too up to date in Kansas City has already become a part of life in offices and plants across the U.S. Companies no longer treat drug problems as an embarrassing aberration limited to a few low-level employees. While most firms have long been aware of the toll that alcoholism takes on workers, they are now confronted with widespread abuse of illegal drugs as well, from the shop floor to the executive suite.

Current estimates are that between 5% and 13% of the U.S. work force abuses drugs other than alcohol. Numerous studies have shown that such abuse means up to three times as many job-related accidents and ten or more times as many sick days. As a result, companies are cracking down.

The economic consequences of the problem are staggering. According to a study released by the Research Triangle Institute in June 1984, abuse of illegal drugs cost the U.S. $60 billion in 1983, up from $46 billion in 1979. Lost worker productivity in 1983 accounted for $33 billion. Some experts think the figure may be much higher.

Faced with such numbers, American business has gone to war against drugs. Says Michael Walsh, chief of clinical and behavioral pharmacology at the National Institute on Drug Abuse: "Nearly half of all the FORTUNE 500 firms are expected to have programs in place within a year to identify abuse and rehabilitate employees at company expense."

A growing number of major U.S. companies, including such firms as Exxon, Federal Express, Greyhound Lines, Southern California Edison, TWA, IBM and Lockheed, require all job applicants to pass urinalysis tests that screen for drugs. Some firms demand that experienced workers undergo such tests when the danger of impairment is simply too great to chance. At Rockwell, company pilots and employees who work with explosives are tested once a year.

When such measures are not enough, tougher actions are often taken. Many companies use undercover agents and drug-sniffing dogs to root out narcotics on their premises. Says Larry Curran, vice president of First Security, a Boston firm: "We're doing 15 to 20 drug investigations per week for corporations right now. That is an increase of 100% from last year."

The price of being caught can be high. Late last week, on an oil-drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, a specially trained Labrador retriever, flown in by helicopter from Franklin, La., discovered marijuana in a worker's luggage. The employee was fired on the spot, and shared a ride back to the mainland with the dog and its handler.

All oil companies operating in the Gulf have similar policies. In the course of one nine-month period, Pennzoil searched twelve platforms, 25 boats and 30 helicopters and fired 85 people caught with drugs. The firm now lets go even employees who are found in possession of drug paraphernalia like roach clips and rolling papers.

At a GM plant in Dayton two weeks ago, 49 people were arrested for using and selling cocaine on the site, and 29 GM employees among those apprehended were fired. That capped a nine-month investigation by local police at the company's request, during which undercover agents purchased large amounts of marijuana and cocaine. On Jan. 2, the agents bought half a pound of coke for $14,000. Said Detective Nels Munson: "That's when we knew we had to move."

Inevitably, perhaps, these determined efforts to reverse a serious problem have upset some workers and sparked lawsuits and other actions. Many workers who fail drug tests insist that an error has been made, arguing that careers can be ruined over such a mistake. Others object because the tests detect traces of drugs lingering in the body that may have no effect on job performance. According to Dr. Reynold Schmidt, corporate medical director for Unocal, regular users of marijuana, for instance, can test positive in some urinalysis screenings three months or more after their last smoke.

Critics are concerned that the drive to eradicate drugs is violating individual rights. In San Francisco the board of supervisors passed a city ordinance last year prohibiting random drug tests by any employer, after Southern Pacific ordered 600 workers to provide urine samples for testing. The company had fired the only employee who refused to cooperate.

Southern Pacific and many other firms insist that the tests are necessary. Like Murphy at Capital Cities, who started his company's program to fight drugs in part because of the cocaine-related death of an employee in 1984, many managers have seen workers die as a result of drug abuse in industrial accidents, train crashes and highway pileups. Says Peter Bensinger, a former chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration who is now a leading consultant on drug abuse: "No one has a civil right to violate the law. Companies do have a right and responsibility to establish sound working conditions."

Indeed, since the screening program was put into place at Southern Pacific, accidents caused by human error have been slashed by more than two-thirds, from 911 in 1983 to 285 in 1985. Says Company Vice President William Lacy: "I have read the Constitution many times, and have yet to find where it authorizes a person to climb up on a locomotive and operate a train carrying hazardous material while under the influence of drugs." --By Janice Castro. Reported by Jonathan Beaty/Los Angeles and Joseph J. Kane/Atlanta, with other bureaus

With reporting by Jonathan Beaty/Los Angeles, Joseph J. Kane/Atlanta, other bureaus