The work habit
Workplace drug testers: No to legalisation
The number of zeroes on the balance sheet of Kirk Hardy’s business would probably treble if cannabis use was legalised, but it would be hard to find anyone more opposed to the idea.
The co-founder and chief executive of The Drug Detection Agency (TDDA), Australasia’s biggest workplace drug tester, says legalisation would be “a terrible mistake”.
“We have a high suicide rate and a high level of mental health issues — it would do nothing but social harm,” he argues.
Hardy says that judging from the experience of US workplace drug testers in states where cannabis use has been legalised, his business workload would increase three- or four-fold.
“Businesses don’t want it in the workplace, so they do more testing,” he says.
Hardy has spent much of his working life around drugs and has seen firsthand the damage they wreak. The Aucklander was a panel beater before joining the police force and becoming a drug squad detective for nearly 10 years.
Workplace drug testing is a family affair. Hardy’s brother Karl, one of the original directors after TDDA was founded in 2005, now heads another drug testing company, Aucklandbased WorkCare, which has partnered with the Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA).
The brothers might be business rivals, but they are united in their strong opposition to the legalisation of cannabis.
Karl Hardy, a former Corrections officer, says “it’s a can of worms”.
“This is about the health and safety of people,” he says.
“The issue is, as soon as we use the word ‘legal’, people have the perception that it’s okay. We put the word legal around alcohol and look at the damage it’s done in society. We had party pills and look at the damage they caused.
“And the latest is synthetic
cannabis. We’re still dealing with the effects of that.”
While the latest public polls suggest next year’s referendum on legalising cannabis use — to be held alongside the general election — is unlikely to result in the drug being legalised, employers are still worried, says EMA head of advocacy and strategy Alan McDonald.
“There’s quite a bit of concern and we share that concern because we can see it heading to problems over what is ‘impaired’ and what isn’t.
“If it’s legal, an employee can turn up and say ‘I’m fine’. That’s where we have to go to a zero tolerance level like the trucking sector and for guys working on overhead [power] lines,” says McDonald.
“Either you have to be very black and white or open the door to trying to define impairment. There are already insurance issues [with impairment]. Someone driving may be under the legal limit but the insurance company may not pay out.”
McDonald says the EMA is still working up its case on the legalisation issue.
However, drugs are already a “serious issue” in the workplace — “a constant and consistent issue for our members”, he says.
Kirk Hardy seconds that. TDDA invests about a quarter of a million dollars each year on research and development and has ploughed $2 million into a sophisticated testing laboratory. It has 65 franchise operations in New Zealand and Australia, recently starting up in Tasmania, and close to 100 bespoke mobile testing vehicles.
Kirk Hardy owns 67.5 per cent of the business, and early business partner Rod Dale, TDDA’s group technical manager, has 25 per cent. Minority shareholders hold the balance.
The company was the first workplace drug testing business here to gain New Zealand (IANZ) ISO 15189 accreditation and today is the only transtasman testing provider to achieve accreditation to both New Zealand and Australian testing standards.
A founding member of the Washington DC-based National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association, TDDA regularly sends its technical staff overseas to learn about the latest drugs, how they’re manufactured, new testing procedures and trends.
“It’s about knowing your enemy,” says Hardy. “As drugs evolve, we have to evolve.
“We are now testing for 40-plus drugs in our lab. Ten years ago we were lucky to be testing for 12.”
While employers approached in high-risk industries say cannabis and synthetic cannabis are the main drugs of choice, testing companies say the menu these days is much wider and more varied. Painkillers or opioids are a growing problem at work, and so is cocaine.
WorkCare’s Karl Hardy says there has been a “huge” increase in methamphetamine use detected in the workplace.
“We used to see only a few positives, now we get two or three a week. It’s across the board, there’s no race or age discrimination.”
He says New Zealand is a target market for meth sellers.
“You can get a higher price in New Zealand. It’s more profitable here. And we seem to be making our own drugs — we have that No. 8 wire mentality.”
Alcohol detection is falling, though Hardy says that for some reason there was a spike in the past month.
“Alcohol is easy to identify. You can smell it and it’s easy to see someone affected. Going to the bar for a liquid lunch isn’t socially acceptable now,” he says.
Brother Kirk Hardy says that with opioids, such as prescription painkillers like Tramadol, the drug use
If [cannabis use] is legal, an employee can turn up and say ‘I’m fine’. That’s where we have to go to a zero tolerance level. Alan McDonald, Employers and Manufacturers Association
sn’t recreational but a dependency ssue.
“They can be very addictive — eople don’t realise it happens quite uickly and has a flow-on effect, not ust to their workplace but to their lives s well. We’ve lost that whole ersonalisation relationship with our GPs — that’s where some of these ssues come from.”
With some of the newer drugs, inding a stash can be life-threatening, which is why TDDA is relentless about ifting the training and education of lient management as part of its ervices, he says.
“Go back three years and if you found a substance, you reported it. Now you don’t touch it. You do not open any bags and you tell police.”
Just touching fentanyl, a pain medication which is used recreationally when mixed with heroin or cocaine, and potentially more dangerous than heroin alone, will be enough to give the finder a dose, says Hardy.
Open a stash of the even more potent drug carfentanil and you won’t live to tell the tale, he says.
“It’s not in New Zealand but it’s something we need to be aware of.”
Detecting drug use among office workers is on the rise, says Hardy.
While most workplace drug policies are in place to ensure the safety of workers in potentially hazardous situations — unlikely to be encountered in an office tower — employers are increasingly on the lookout for habitual use of drugs such as cocaine.
“We do a lot of testing for court cases. There’s been a lot of media around certain organisations that have cultures not conducive to the workplace. A lot of it is about brand and company protection and having certain expectations of employees.
“A person might be responsible for a lot of funds in a company, or the safety and wellbeing of other staff. [If impaired] they might not have the ability to make sound decisions.
“People who have a very bad, very expensive habit they can’t afford, potentially look at how to fund that habit by other means.”
The foundation of any workplace drug testing regime is a clear written policy within which to work, say both the testing agencies and the EMA, which offers businesses guidance in this area.
For big companies such as Fonterra, human resources management ensures staff are in no doubt about zero tolerance.
The dairy company says its manufacturing, processing and offices are drug- and alcohol-free zones.
“The consumption of alcohol and illegal drugs is prohibited at all sites. The consumption of legal drugs, for example prescription medication, is restricted where this may negatively affect the safe performance of duties.”
However exemptions may be made at the discretion of management, for special occasions such as serving wine at a customer or stakeholder event on company premises, Fonterra says.
Another large-scale employer, who declined to be named, says his company has a zero tolerance policy and is extremely concerned about the possibility that cannabis use could be legalised.
“You can’t have drug-impaired people operating processing sites, yet this Government is considering legalising stuff we are testing against. We are strongly anti because we know how it negatively impacts on performance.”
This employer is “not that comfortable” testing office staff because he considers the prime driver for testing is employee safety.
“But we random test across the organisation to ensure we have a high degree of fairness and we’re not picking on any particular group.”
Pre-employment and random drug testing is big business for companies like TDDA and WorkCare.
Fonterra, which has more than 20,000 employees, more than any company in New Zealand, says it carries out a range of drug and alcohol testing, including pre-employment testing, post-event testing and reasonable cause testing, aligned with local legal requirements, its employment agreements and its assessment of the risks involved.
TDDA recommends using a range of testing methods, such as a mixture of oral fluid, urine and hair testing.
All tests have their advantages and disadvantages, says Kirk Hardy. Businesses should use testing methods to fit the needs of their workplace, and should consider all forms of testing based on the outcomes desired.
Meanwhile, brother Karl says testing is only a small part of WorkCare’s job and he has a strong interest in rehabilitation, an avenue that is badly lacking official resources.
“We do testing but we believe we can offer a lot more. This is a great opportunity not just to help workplaces, but the community as well.
“We are changing attitudes and lives too. It’s about positive thinking and reinforcement.”
We are now testing for 40-plus drugs in our lab. Ten years ago we were lucky to be testing for 12. Kirk Hardy, The Drug Detection Agency