How you can Benefit from Pre-employment Drug Screening

Did you know that 77% or drug users are employed? According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse this is true. This means there are a lot of drug users out there and you could be hiring one of them. Drug use in the workplace can contribute to job injuries, violence, accidents on the job and absenteeism.  More and more employers are including drug screening as part of their pre-employment/background screening process to ensure that they do not hire an individual with a drug problem.

When deciding on making drug screening a part of your employment screening process it is completely up to you. Certain employers are required to drug screen applicants and employees, however many are not. Take a look at the position you are hiring for. Will the individual be working with children or elderly, have access to prescription medications, operating a company vehicle or heavy machinery? In any of these cases it would be advisable to conduct a drug screen on both applicants and current employees.

Should you decide on implementing a drug screening program you will need to decide if you are going to be screening applicants as part of the pre-employment screening process and/or your current employees as an ongoing random selection process. Once you decide on the program(s) you wish to implement you must adhere to a universal set of rules and screen all applicants and/or all current employees equally and in the same manner. This protects you against you against discrimination laws.

If you are implementing your new drug screening program as part of a pre-employment screening process you will need to obtain written consent from the applicant.  Your background screening company should have a release form that you can use for this purpose. If you are implementing a post hire drug screening program this needs to be outlined in an employee handbook or other such documentation, making the employee fully aware they are subject to random drug screening throughout their employment.

The next step is to decide on what type of drug test you would like to administer. The most common is a urine drug screen. However, hair and saliva drug screens are also available. The two most common drug test types are the 5 and 10 panel drug screens. The 5 panel drug screen will test for the “5 basic street drugs”, such as Marijuana, Cocaine, PCP, Opiates, and Amphetamines. The 10 panel will test for these 5 drugs in addition to some common prescription medications. Determining which test to administer is up to you. Again, take a look at the position you are hiring for. If you are hiring a nurse working in a nursing home with access to many prescription medications, it would be advisable to use the 10 panel drug screen.

The main reason for implementing a drug screening process is to protect you and your employees. Given the number of drug users in the US you can see how easily you could hire a habitual drug user without even knowing it, causing problems down the road by stealing drugs, damaging vehicles/equipment and not taking the proper care of children or elderly.