How Drug Testing Can Benefit Your Business

Substance abuse in the workplace is more common than you might think. Drug use at work has seen an increase over the past four years. Employees are testing positive for substances such as cocaine, marijuana, amphetamines, alcohol, painkillers, benzodiazepines, and even heroin. 

Abusing these drugs in the workplace can have serious consequences.  Employees on drugs are far more likely to get hurt on the job, as well as when away from work. Drug-using employees are known to have greater absenteeism, exhibit less productivity, or injure themselves. 

Regulations concerning drug testing

Employers are worried about drug use in the workplace. Substance abuse is costly for businesses. If you suspect someone of drug use, you must be clear in warning them that this is unacceptable. 

The right to drug test employees is different in each state, so check the laws. 

The benefits of drug testing in the workplace

While pre-employment drug testing is a good way to screen for potential abusers, random drug testing at work is much more efficient. By testing employees randomly, you ideally dissuade them using at all. 

You can find many benefits to drug testing in the workplace, such as making a safer work environment. Employees who are abusing drugs while at work prove to be dangerous when operating equipment. Screening for drugs helps to decrease any legal liability. If an accident were to occur while a worker was on drugs, the employer would be held responsible. In the end, you’re creating a workplace that’s much safer.

Also, as previously mentioned, substance abuse leads to decreased productivity, absenteeism, tardiness, and a high rate of turnover. Insurance costs are also higher in a workplace where drug abuse happens. Randomly performing drug tests can help solve these problems.

How drug testing works

Multiple methods of conducting drug tests are available, with each method varying in response time and intrusiveness. The most common method of drug testing is urine collection, which is a quick and easy way to detect illegal drugs in the body.

Hair testing is another nonintrusive method of testing for illegal substances. The advantage that hair testing has over urine analysis is that drugs can stay in hair for up to three months. 

Saliva testing is another nonintrusive procedure. One example of a saliva test is the Oral Cube test. All that’s involved is putting the collection sponge inside of the mouth for 3 minutes. Next, you put the sponge in a special collection cube and close the lid, compressing the sponge completely. The results will show up immediately, where a negative result means that lines will appear besides the test line. So if no lines are present, it means that saliva tested positive for drugs.

This test has many benefits. It’s easy to operate, because all that’s involved is swabbing the inside of the cheek. As one of the quickest drug tests out there, results appear within 10 minutes after testing. The Oral Cube has up to 99.9% accuracy, and it’s the cheapest saliva drug test on the market right now. 

The Oral Cube saliva test is able to detect up to 18 drugs, including cocaine, opiates, amphetamines, methamphetamines, and marijuana. Using saliva is less invasive than urine screens or blood tests. It’s important to note that this test is made for forensic use and workplace testing only. Because it’s lightweight, it’s easy to take into your workplace to administer the tests yourself. Hopefully, those who test positive for drugs will be motivated to turn their lives around and quit, perhaps out of motivation or perhaps out of fear of another random drug test. Either way, the possibility of being tested is enough to deter many employees from ever using drugs again.