The evidence for drug testing in Alberta workplaces

Last week, I appeared in a CBC call in show about the implementation of random drug testing among Suncor employees as part of the Drug and Alcohol Risk Reduction Pilot Project (DARRPP) in Alberta’s energy and construction sectors.

The basic argument made by DARRPP for random testing is a safety one: violating employee privacy rights is warranted because random testing will make workplaces safer. Preparing for the interview, I read a number of studies that (to my surprise) indicate (1) random drug testing (as distinct from other kinds of drug testing) is not generally associated with a reduction in injuries and (2) drug use (as distinct from alcohol use) on the job or off is not associated with an increase injuries. This seems to undercut the safety argument almost entirely, which was the message I delivered on the show.

Since then, I’ve had a fair number of emails and phone calls with people asking about the evidence. This is a complicated request: (1) there are many studies, and (2) designing and executing a study often entails significant tradeoffs so sometimes findings require some expertise to understand. There is also the matter that it is not possible to prove a negative (i.e., that drugs never cause injury rates to go up and that random drug testing never causes injury rates to go down). Rather, we typically require those who assert a relationship (i.e., DARRP) to show evidence that it exists, so let’s start there.

 

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