Our unique and beautiful country is on the brink of a drug crisis and at Worksafe Scotland, we believe that Scotlands employers, can help turn this around, by partnering with us in this vision.
We believe that our vision, will help to significantly reduce the number of people in Scotland who go on to become drug users, drug addicts, or victims of drug impaired driving or workplace incidents. At the same time, this will improve productivity, safety and culture within Scotland’s workplaces.
It’s well documented by psychologists throughout history that as humans, we have basic human needs for food, warmth, clothing , and shelter, above all else. For most humans, these are our priorities each day, what we work for. For most of us, our reason for getting up and going to work each day, is to look after our families, put food on the table, pay our heating costs, have a comfortable home. In addition to our basic needs, many feel strongly that those basic needs include having electronic devices to communicate with others, devices for entertainment, cars for transport, savings, gym memberships or activities for health. These basic and preferred needs come at a cost, and are some of the main reasons that we work.
We believe there are tens of thousands of people across Scotland who attend work each day, impaired by drugs, substances, alcohol or medications that cause impairment, that their employers are unaware of.
We believe there are two key groups in our society who misuse substances.
Recreation & Choice is the biggest group. Individuals who take substances by choice!. Sometimes for fun, perhaps through peer pressure, sometimes thrill seeking, maybe to keep them awake, or perhaps to deal with past trauma , or to self medicate through anxiety and mental health conditions. Many of this group take substances, including at work, not because they need it, but because they can, or because no-one questions it. The key here , is that these individuals have a choice.
Dependant or addicted is the smaller group, and many are not or are no longer in employment. These are individuals who have progressed through that stage of using substances by choice, and have now become dependant on the substance. For this group, a much more specialised support system is required and available through our NHS and Social Services, Charity organisations and sometimes private sector specialist support systems.
However for Group 1, (Recreation and Choice), the biggest group,… this is where our vision comes in.
We believe that mandatory drug testing in the workplace, particularly for safety critical roles, will be key, to prevent workers being impaired, at work and on our roads, risking their own health and other people’s safety, and will reduce the risk of them becoming dependant, improving their overall wellbeing and futures. Additionally, this will improve the safety, relationships and culture within workplaces across Scotland.
We believe that workers, if given the choice, of maintaining a good quality of life, with food, clothing, shelter, wages, electronics, entertainment, health, dignity and self esteem of earning and paying for that standard of life, or losing all of this, to take cocaine or cannabis at the weekend for fun, this will be an easy choice for tens of thousands of workers across Scotland. We know that a huge proportion of them WILL stop taking substances, because the stakes are high, and that’s an easy, responsible and obvious choice to continue to meet our human needs. For most workers, they havent needed to make that choice up until now.
With our vision, we want them to make that choice, now. We want these employees to remain in gainful employment, prioritise their health and futures, continue to be valued colleagues and members of their community, be safe, and most importantly , to not continue down the path to dependence, addiction and poor health.
It is our vision, that through the introduction of mandatory testing by employers, most, if not all of these workers, will make the right choice and prioritise their employment, future and income, over taking recreational substances.
This is a win-win outcome for employers who will enjoy more productive employees, employees who will have a clear sense of responsibility around a workplace zero tolerance approach, and our communities who will also benefit from improved culture and relationships, reduction in addiction, poor health, reduced road deaths, and crime.
As an employer, you will rarely know who is impaired in your workplace, prior to a serious incident occurring, unless you implement regular drug testing. To implement testing, you need to develop and implement a Drugs Testing Policy.
Drug testing is not difficult to implement, or expensive. But it can save lives, improve your workplace culture and productivity and the wellbeing of your employees.
We want to encourage the Scottish Government and politicians in Scotland to see the benefits of implementing legislation on Mandatory Workplace Drug Testing, but even prior to this, we can roll this out across Scotland independently, by the implementation of Drug Testing Policies in every workplace, to show our commitment to reducing the drug problem across Scotland.
Safety critical roles are roles which if workers undertake them while impaired, could result in significant harm to themselves or someone else.
Examples of safety critical roles include all driving roles, working in health & social care, emergency services, energy sector, electricity, gas, security, haulage, machine operation, manufacturing, construction, rescue personnel, delivery drivers, pharmacy workers, allied health professionals, teachers, prison service, maritime, safety officers.
In Health & Social Care alone we have 400,000 workers across Scotland, who are responsible for the health, safety and wellbeing of our loved ones, and yet there is no regulated system in place to ensure workers are not impaired at work.
Our ambulance service attends 740 thousand emergency calls per year, our fire and rescue service attended 99 thousand calls last year, and our Police Service attend 2000 emergency calls per day, all driving at high speed on our roads, working to save lives, with complex machinery, equipment, controlled drugs, making life or death decisions, and yet there is no regulated system in place to ensure workers are not impaired at work.
There are 3 million people with driving licences in Scotland and over 5000 HGV drivers on our roads, and yet no regulation for identifying and monitoring for impairment while driving.
Implementing mandatory drug testing in the workplace will not only save the lives of many who may be affected by impaired workers, but will ensure that all safety critical professionals make that choice, to “say No” to substance abuse, and keep our communities, colleagues and loved ones safe, significantly reducing the numbers of drug users across Scotland.
Scotlands employers, one by one, can make a meaningful and lasting difference. Help us to save lives and lead change.
The founder, Worksafe Scotland Ltd.
