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NEWS: Sunday Telegraph - 06/08/2006 'Aussies wasted at work'

hoptis

hoptis

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Aussies wasted at work
By Adam Bell
August 06, 2006 10:40pm

A NEW study has exposed the alarming extent of illegal drug use by Australian workers and sparked calls for drug-testing in the workplace.

The research found 17 per cent of employees are illegal drug-users, with more than 250,000 taking drugs while at work.

Hospitality employees, tradespeople and construction workers were the most likely to be stoned on the job.

The results are backed up by these photographs taken by The Sunday Telegraph last week, showing construction site workers smoking marijuana bongs during a "smoko" break.

The scaffolders took regular drug-breaks in a vehicle in plain view of passers-by before climbing back on to rigs up to three-storeys high.

Across all industries, cannabis is the drug of choice followed by amphetamines, ecstasy, painkillers and cocaine, according to the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction at Flinders University.

Published today for the first time, the study is based on a national drug survey of 30,000 Australians in 2004 and is the first to break down drug use by industry in Australia.

Hospitality workers are the heaviest users of illegal drugs, with 31 per cent admitting to using drugs outside of work hours in the previous year.

Construction workers were the second-heaviest users (24.1 per cent) followed by retail workers (20.7 per cent).

Those most likely to take illegal drugs while on the job are hospitality workers (7.7 per cent), followed by construction (4.2 per cent) and transport (3.2 per cent).

Translated into numbers, this means almost 100,000 workers in these industries alone are getting stoned at work.

On three days last week, The Sunday Telegraph witnessed two scaffolders at a Randwick demolition site smoke marijuana before, during and after work in a ute parked next to the work site.

One of the scaffolders photographed admitted to using drugs on the job.

"I know I done the wrong thing; a couple of us blokes had a smoke at lunchtime and now that's the end of me," he said.

"I know a lot of people have a beer at lunch. But this is frowned upon by society, I suppose, because it's an illegal drug at the end of the day."

The co-author of the study, Dr Ken Pidd, said that the true extent of the drug problem in workplaces may, in fact, be worse than reported because some respondents may not have admitted to illicit drug use.

Dr Pidd said drug use increased the risk of workplace injury or death because it affected concentration, judgment and reaction times, both on and off sites.

"We estimate between three and 11 per cent of accidents are related to workplace drug and alcohol use," he said.

The findings will ignite the debate between employer groups and unions over the place of random and mandatory drug tests in the workplace.

Random drug testing is uncommon in most Australian industries, apart from transport.

State industrial laws do not require mandatory drug-testing even after accidents or fatalities, except for transport workers such as train drivers and pilots.

Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the liability on employees was very light, Employers First chief executive Garry Brack said.

"The courts go very easy on employees, the Government is silent on the subject, and unions are always determined to demonstrate - even where workers were plainly negligent or doing stupid things - that somehow the employer was at fault."

Unions say drug-testing is not the most effective way to combat drug abuse in the workplace.

"You can tell if a person is impaired or intoxicated on the job," Unions NSW occupational health and safety officer Mary Yaager said.

"Drug-testing is not effective. You are better off observing employees and actually training supervisors in drug evaluation.

"You're not going to test someone every single morning before they start work."

Mr Brack favours a more hardline approach, saying it was equally impractical for employers to constantly observe workers.

The NSW Government supports testing where a risk assessment has identified the need, it has the agreement of employers and workers, and is part of a comprehensive alcohol and other drugs program.

"Privacy, confidentiality and the legal position of employees and management need to be considered," a spokesman for Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca said.

WorkCover's employer guide for establishing a workplace drug and alcohol policy is under review.
Click to expand...

From News.com.au
 
For and against testing
August 06, 2006 10:55pm

WHETHER drug-testing can be used as an effective weapon in combating drug use at work is an issue of hot debate.

The problem is that most tests simply cannot detect intoxication or impairment, only the presence of drugs in the body.

"Does the mere presence of the drug mean it will affect their performance? Probably not," says Paul Dillon of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre.

"With cannabis, for instance, detection could mean the impairment is from quite a long time ago (the drug remains in fat cells for a month) and really has no effect on them at the time."

Common drug tests, urine and saliva, cannot determine and quantify the degree of drug impairment, as breath tests can do for alcohol.

Unions and employers agree that being stoned or drunk on the job is clearly a concern because of the risk posed to the employee, other employees and the public. But they disagree over whether the presence of drugs and alcohol necessarily affects work performance or whether it can be proven as a cause of workplace accidents.

Despite the drawbacks, Employers First chief executive Garry Brack says random drug-testing acts as a deterrent to employees taking drugs at work because of the possibility of being caught.

"There is strong community support for zero-tolerance for drugs and alcohol for high-risk professions like pilots, police or train drivers," Paul Dillon says. "But for industries like hospitality, people say realistically they are not so worried. A bartender doesn't hold a person's life in his hands, nor does a cleaner or a matre d'.

"They clearly have a different level of responsibility to, say, an airline pilot."
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From News.com.au / Sunday Telegraph
 
A situation relating to this issue was raised by one of my neighbours just the other day.

He is an older dude in his early sixties. He was working at an upmarket estate doing landscaping, mowing etc. He had worked for the past 18 months with 3 other workers, all aged over 40. As the workload was quite intense - many acres of land to cover- they were pleased to hear the body corporate was to employ 3 additional workers. What they didn't expect is that the three employed were 24 hour drug users. Over 2 weeks, these guys smoked dope and ice at work, ducking off at tea breaks and when they moved from job to job to smoke a pipe or 2, pull a bong and sometimes apparently even down a slug of Bourbon. My friend said their typical lunch hour included bulbs and more pipes of meth.

Now, my neighbour admits he wasn't a saint when younger, but he couldn't believe these guys, and more to the point, their overall attitude to work. Besides refusing to do the harder jobs, they drove through the estate at dangerous speeds and abused the older guys when given duties they didn't like.

Eventually all the older guys resigned, citing their reasons to corporate management and Centrelink. The old guys were offered stress leave as they had been threatened and intimidated by the younger workers. They all took it but refused to withdraw their resignations, my neighbour saying any place that would hire such workers was not somewhere he wanted to be.



While I believe pertinent risk management & safety issues in the workplace in all fairness should demand drug free workers while at work, the main argument IMO is whether this should extend to drug metabolites. In other words, should drug use outside of working hours also be tested for/monitored? I don't believe it should, although I'm not discounting that recreational use could negatively influence safety of the work environment. It's just that other issues can equally influence work safety. Lack of sleep, stress, hangover from alcohol and even side effect of prescription medications could cause similar effects to those produced from the after effects of a weekend of recreational drug use.

As some of us have said in the past, Illicit drug use is now easily detectable and so at some point it's destined to become more thoroughly addressed. The obvious answers for those not willing to give up their drug use will be to either become self employed, or to use drugs which are not detectable by present immunolabeling techniques.

If the latter becomes popular, the workplace is very likely to become even more dangerous, not to mention possible user associated health problems.
 
This article is trying to shape society or something. Why do they think that there lurid journalism is conclusive.
 
i'm surprised the figures are so low.. especially for the hopspitality industry! i love my job<3
 
Portillo said:
This article is trying to shape society or something. Why do they think that there lurid journalism is conclusive.
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Because it's the Daily Telegraph. I read the hard copy of this paper, it seemed like a damn slow news day, nothing exciting happening at all in Australia. They'd probably been sitting on this article for a little while waiting for such a slow news day to trot it out for another round of community outrage.

I do agree that certain professions shouldn't be using drugs at work though, some not at all.
 
MoonlapseVertigo said:
Because it's the Daily Telegraph. I read the hard copy of this paper, it seemed like a damn slow news day, nothing exciting happening at all in Australia. They'd probably been sitting on this article for a little while waiting for such a slow news day to trot it out for another round of community outrage.

I do agree that certain professions shouldn't be using drugs at work though, some not at all.
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Its pretty funny how in this day and age they still turn to drug scandals or sex scandals just in case theres no news that day.
 
I work in construction and don't mind a few cones now and then but never at work. I know a few other people smoke in their off time but I doubt they do at work either, as they say you're constantly 2 seconds away from an accident on a construction site if you don't think about what's going on around you.

Having said that there's probably plenty on my site at the moment that do.
 
I have worked a number of different casual jobs, all medium-high intensive labour jobs and drugs use at the job seemed very prevelent.

One job I had the team I worked with would frequently go home on the way to site, or in between jobs to chill for a short while and have a few cones. I have heard of a boss giving his whole construction crew meth on a near daily basis, I guess to get the team to work faster.

Another job I had stacking cartons of beer all day at a huge distribution centre, the supervisor (who also operated a fork lift) smoked weed all day, and gave myself and the other casuals hits all day long.
 
All I have to say is..

HAHAHHAAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHA. As if the reporters who writes these stories dont smoke the fuck out of it.
 
I know for a fact that the service industry, esp supermarkets, have a high proportion of ppl either use drugs in their spare time or even at work. I myself have worked stoned, or high on wizz on a few occasions, though I don't anymore its way too much of a head fuck and work seems to go slower!

I work at a major aus supermarket chain and there have even been times when managers have been drunk, I've found bottles of burbon in managers desk drawers, and I've definitely smelled pot coming from the fresh produce prep room! On other occasions I've worked at night with mates who have dropped pills, even while working side by side with our department managers!
I wouldn't be surprised if 1/4 of supermarket staff used illicit drugs regularly 8)
 
I would never willingly get high at a workplace, but on a few occassions when I worked a white collar job in the city and I was absolutely knackered and felt very tired (sometimes from partying on the weekend, sometimes because I suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome) I would take a small dab of speed if I had some in my wallet.

Definately not enough to get high, but just enough to help me perform during the day. Now this would have been very beneficial to my employer.

I wonder what the bureaucrats would say about this? Obviously I am an irresponsible drug user....
 
Its only irresponsible because its deemed to be illicit by a government whom is corrupt and incompetent.

Oh, and they don't earn fucking TAX on it.
 
Machine said:
I would never willingly get high at a workplace, but on a few occassions when I worked a white collar job in the city and I was absolutely knackered and felt very tired (sometimes from partying on the weekend, sometimes because I suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome) I would take a small dab of speed if I had some in my wallet.

Definately not enough to get high, but just enough to help me perform during the day. Now this would have been very beneficial to my employer.

I wonder what the bureaucrats would say about this? Obviously I am an irresponsible drug user....
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Damn straight. It's heaps worse to take a tiny dose of speed than it is to drink a cup of coffee for more or less identical purposes. :)
 
^^^^^^^^
I don't think you can compare speed to coffee.

You have chronic fatique and take drugs? Does that not make it a lot worse?
 
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