More southern employers are opting to drug-test their staff,
and the New Zealand Drug Detection Agency said business is
booming in Otago and Southland.
Workers for about 80 companies in Otago - the majority in
Dunedin - now faced drug tests using NZDDA services as part
of their employment.
NZDDA Otago-Southland general manager John Galliven, of
Dunedin, said the Otago branch was formed only 18 months ago,
and had been joined since by a Southland branch in June last
year.
The number of Otago employers using the service had "easily
doubled" in the past year, and the two branches together had
experienced "about 400%" customer growth in the same period,
he said.
That included the Dunedin City Council, the first southern
council to become an NZDDA customer, which the Otago Daily
Times this week reported was asking staff to consider a new
alcohol-and-other-drugs policy.
Mr Galliven said "quite a few" other southern employers were
also in talks to implement drug policies using NZDDA's
services.
He would not confirm if that included other southern
councils, saying only "there's going to be lots of things on
the way".
The demand was being driven by a desire of employers to
improve their health and safety performance, in line with
legislative requirements.
That would lower organisations' health and safety costs, but
also meant more workers went home safely each night, he said.
"At the end of the day, all we want to see is people going
home to their families in one piece."
The demand was also increasing as more employers saw others
implementing policies, he believed.
Nationwide, NZDDA staff carried out about 3500 tests each
month.
However, Mr Galliven - a former Dunedin police detective -
said the tests were not about "sacking workers".
Employers did not want to lose trained staff, and used
rehabilitation programmes to help those found to be impaired
at work.
Despite that, he made no apology for encouraging workers to
change their personal habits to ensure safety at work.
"It also extends to their home life as well. Once they've
kicked certain habits into touch, you generally find you've
got a more productive worker, a safer worker and probably the
home life is not too worse off for it either."
The tests had raised privacy concerns, with some southern
workers complaining to their unions, and NORML New Zealand -
the pro-marijuana law reform group - argued the drug's
lingering presence did not constitute impairment.
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