Have you ever heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences? The idea behind it is that actions of people or governments more often than not have effects that are unanticipated or unintended.
One example of this phenomenon was the introduction of well-meaning bicycle helmet laws in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, which focused on increasing the safety of the riders. However, instead of increasing the safety of the riders, these laws had a number of unintended consequences, like:
- Suppressing bicycle usage by up to 60%;
- Instilling a false sense of security in experienced cyclists, which resulted in faster and harder riding and an uptick in injuries;
- Discouraging female riders, children, seniors, and minorities from even considering riding.
It seems that as of late we are experiencing this same phenomenon in another area of our lives in the United States of America – the area of drug use. And it seems that many other parts of the world are very much in the same boat. There seems to be a lot of confusion around the relaxation in medicinal and recreational drug laws throughout the world and all the repercussions that these regulatory decisions spell out for personal lives and work environments.
Take marijuana for example.
In the U.S., federal laws consider marijuana to be a Schedule I drug, with penalties for the possession, distribution, growth, or sale of marijuana. Schedule I drugs are also included in the testing requirements for safety-sensitive jobs. However, 92% of the US states, 46 of them to be exact, plus the District of Columbia, have legalized medical marijuana usage and 48% of US states, or 24 of them, plus the District of Columbia, have legalized recreational marijuana. There are several states, in addition to this, where marijuana is illegal but decriminalized, which means that smoking weed there may result in penalties but not prosecution. And then there are yet others where marijuana is still illegal and not decriminalized but CBD products are allowed.
So, plenty of confusion for the average citizen.
Outside the United States, marijuana is legal in Canada, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, and Thailand. Yet even in these geographies all is not so simple. European Union illustrates this perfectly. According to John Wicks, co-founder and CEO of Cansford Laboratories and one of the UK’s leading experts in drug testing, workplace drug testing in Europe is a tricky business. Why? Because of the often-conflicting expectations between the privacy laws, the human rights requirements, and the controlled substance regulations which vary quite widely between different member states.
Likewise, Australia is in flux at the moment, with federal regulations being often in conflict with various local, state, and territory laws. When it comes to Asia, unsurprisingly many countries on this continent maintain strict prohibitionist policies regarding cannabis – the possession, cultivation, trafficking, or use of cannabis is illegal here and can lead to severe legal consequences.
With so much fluctuation in the global regulatory requirements, the onus for implementing workplace controls is on the individual companies. The employers end up being the ones who must both ensure they provide a safe workplace and tread lightly in enforcing their policies and procedures, while dealing with regional privacy laws and medical doctors who may or may not be at liberty to disclose the results of the tests in different jurisdictions.
Then, there is a plethora of special case scenarios, where additional consideration must be provided, due to the extenuating circumstances. A good example of the above are those individuals who are approved for medical marijuana but work in safety-sensitive environments where such use could jeopardize their employment. Additionally, how should the U. S. organizations function who are not covered by the Drug-Free Workplace Act but still desire to provide a safe work environment for their employees? What is the best way for these companies to protect themselves from the risks of litigations challenging the validity of test results and conflicts with constitutional rights (against unreasonable searches and seizures by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution) and other laws (e.g., the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibiting discrimination against qualified individuals with a disability based on prior drug-related problems)? This is a very pertinent question, though answering it may lie outside the scope of the present paper.
With so many nuances in state/region and federal regulations around the world, the challenge for the individuals residing within these jurisdictions must be real, especially when it comes to having a clear understanding of what they can and cannot do. This is especially pertinent for those individuals whose employment is in safety-sensitive jobs, which may have federally mandated drug testing associated with them.
So, what is the unintended consequence of this confusion between the federal and state requirements?
Cheating on drug tests.
Why even do drug tests?
First of all, why even conduct drug tests? From a higher-level perspective, substance involvement represents a significant public and occupational health issue that imposes economic and health-related societal costs. From an employer perspective, employee drug use can put employers at an elevated risk of accidents, increased absenteeism, lower productivity, and higher insurance costs. Plus, some job families in the U.S. for example belong to safety sensitive categories, which come with an automatic requirement for drug testing.
Is the drug testing system perfect?
I realize that some will challenge the necessity of drug testing all together, while others will question the meaningfulness of the metric that is not nuanced enough to test levels of inebriation like we do with alcohol, while yet others will attempt to prove that failure of a drug test is not causal to an incident. The current system of drug testing in the United States is certainly not perfect but the presence of an imperfect system is still better than no system at all. Given that the purpose of this article is not to defend a particular system and that even an imperfect system can save lives, drug testing is here to stay, at least for the time being.
Why test for marijuana?
Yet others will challenge the necessity of drug testing for marijuana. So, why should we test for cannabis in the workplace? The reasons are quite numerous.
The first reason why we should test for marijuana usage in the workplace is because quite frankly nothing good comes from marijuana. Clearly this statement might seem controversial, as people have argued over the benefits and the drawbacks of drug usage for quite some time now. But the fact of the matter is that there has been no research presenting evidence to date that identifies benefits of marijuana usage to the workplace, while at the same time there is an overwhelming amount of evidence of the harm and negative outcomes associated with this and other drugs.
Furthermore, the problematic drug consumption creates unique threats to the users and their families’ well-being and results in significant economic costs for society by increasing workplace injuries (Spicer et al., 2003), turnover (Bufquin et al., 2021), and absenteeism (Sorge et al., 2020; Van Hasselt et al., 2015). For instance, in 2020, 388 fatal work injury deaths (out of a total of 4,786) were due to unintentional overdose from alcohol and drug consumption, which has quadrupled within a decade (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). Here are just a few statistics borrowed from my Save Lives: Pushing Boundaries in Human Factors book, where an entire chapter (Chapter 16) is dedicated to this topic:
- Daily cannabis users have a 25% increased risk of a heart attack and a 42% increased risk of a stroke.
- Using marijuana before the age of 18 may permanently affect how the brain builds connections for functions like attention, memory, and learning.
- Marijuana users are twice as likely to get injured on the job, when compared to non-users.
- Of those injured on the job, cannabis users are 22% more likely to end up in ER or be hospitalized.
The list goes on, but the picture is clear. The state laws, which were designed to simplify people’s lives and free up the local law enforcement for more weighty matters, ended up pushing people to cheat on the drug tests, increasing the likelihood of getting hurt on the job because of use, exacerbating the extent of injury, and even causing some permanent brain connections which impact the users’ attention, memory, and learning.
When government restrictions ease, cheating on drug tests skyrockets
According to the Quest Diagnostics’ Annual Drug Testing Index, the percentage of US workers whose drug tests showed signs of tampering skyrocketed in 2023 to its highest level in over 30 years. The percentage of employees in the general U.S. workforce whose drug test showed signs of tampering increased by more than six-fold in 2023 versus the prior year. The increase in substituted urine specimens in the general U.S. workforce was 633%. Invalid urine specimens in the general U.S. workforce increased 45.2%. A result of substituted or invalid suggests a specimen has been tampered with in an attempt to conceal drug use.
“Given the growing acceptance and use of some drugs, particularly marijuana, it may be unsurprising that some people feel it necessary to try and cheat a drug test,” states Suhash Harwani, Ph.D., Senior Director of Science for Workforce Health Solutions at Quest Diagnostics. Dr. Harwani adds that “It is possible that our society’s normalization of drug use is fostering environments in which some employees feel it is acceptable to use such drugs without truly understanding the impact they have on workplace safety.”
A way forward
For Individuals
From an individual to an individual – my humble advice is don’t use marijuana. It’s as simple as that. The benefits derived from it are very few and very short-lived, while the negative consequences are very many and most are very permanent.
A recent New York Times article reveals that many marijuana users mistakenly assume that, since the drug is legal in much of the country, it must be nonaddictive and safe. This assumption is dangerously wrong and many if not most of those who begin using the drug for medical purposes report getting addicted and experiencing painful and lasting side effects.
Plus, not using marijuana in the first place, you will never be tempted with cheating on a drug test again.
For employers
As an employer, irrespective of the geography you are in or the specific controlled substance regulatory requirements you are under, you have a legal and a moral obligation to provide a safe and healthy work environment for your employees. As such, it is in your best interest to have sound drug and alcohol and employee assistance policies (EAP) and procedures to ensure that employee drug testing programs, among other things, are scientifically rigorous and effective. “Cheating on drug tests not only undermines workplace safety but also jeopardizes the safety of society as a whole,” said Katie Mueller, a senior program manager at the National Safety Council focusing on cannabis safety. “Companies, regulators and policymakers must prioritize accountability for the well-being of all individuals in our communities; lives depend on it,” she added. Additionally, research suggests that having both a workplace drug and alcohol policy and EAP is associated with significantly lower rates of marijuana and other illicit drug use compared to having neither of the two measures.
Canadian National Railway is a great example of a company that is successfully navigating the oft tumultuous regulatory waters for the sake of its workforce, contractors, tenants, and the communities they serve. Their secret? Amidst the confusing and contradictory federal and provincial requirements, Canadian National implemented a robust corporate Policy to Prevent Workplace Alcohol and Drug Problems alongside an Employee and Family Assistance Program. They understand the potentially catastrophic consequences of impairment at work, so they elected to have a zero-tolerance approach to impairment from both legal and illegal substances, not only for their Canadian-based employees but also for their contractors and tenants. Yet at the same time, there is a place for their employees who may be struggling with addictions to seek help before drug or alcohol use becomes a workplace or personal problem.
For governments
If you are part of the municipal, state or federal government that is wanting to decriminalize or reclassify marijuana to a less stringently regulated controlled substance, you may be responsible for increasing the risk of impaired workers.
How? Because both the decriminalization and reclassification more often than not adds scores of individuals operating under the influence into the workplaces and the public arena, which could have devastating results.
Take professional drivers for example. The loosening of regulations could lead to all the professional drivers and transportation workers being untested for marijuana, as Schedule II and III substances are not included in the testing requirements. So, the risk of simply being on the road will increase exponentially and not just for the drivers, but the rest of the public sharing the roads with them.
Please think twice about how your actions may introduce unintended consequences in our workplaces and our communities and cost lives as a result.
References:
Megan Twohey, Danielle Ivory and Carson Kessler. As America’s Marijuana Use Grows, So Do the Harms. The New York Times, Oct. 4, 2024.
John Wicks. Understanding the Workplace Drug Testing Rules Around Europe. Cansford Labs Blog. Jan 9, 2019. https://blog.cansfordlabs.co.uk/workplace-drug-testing-rules-around-europe
Workforce Drug Test Cheating Surged in 2023, Finds Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index Analysis of Nearly 10 Million Drug Tests. Newsroom. Quest Diagnostics. May 15, 2024. https://newsroom.questdiagnostics.com/2024-05-15-Workforce-Drug-Test-Cheating-Surged-in-2023,-Finds-Quest-Diagnostics-Drug-Testing-Index-Analysis-of-Nearly-10-Million-Drug-Tests
Simon Goncharenko. Save Lives: Pushing Boundaries in Human Factors. Midway, TX: Kindle Direct Publishing, 2024.
Frone, M. R., & Bamberger, P. A. (2024). Alcohol and illicit drug involvement in the workforce and workplace. In L. E. Tetrick, G. G. Fisher, M. T. Ford, & J. C. Quick (Eds.), Handbook of occupational health psychology (3rd ed., pp. 361–383). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000331-018
Spicer RS, Miller TR, Smith GS. Worker substance use, workplace problems and the risk of occupational injury: a matched case-control study. J Stud Alcohol. 2003 Jul;64(4):570-8. doi: 10.15288/jsa.2003.64.570. PMID: 12921200.
Bufquin, D., Park, J.-Y., Back, R. M., de Souza Meira, J. V., & Hight, S. K. (2021). Employee work status, mental health, substance use, and career turnover intentions: An examination of restaurant employees during COVID-19. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 93, N.PAG. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2020.102764
Van Hasselt, M., Keyes, V., Bray, J., & Miller, T. (2015). Prescription drug abuse and workplace absenteeism: Evidence from the 2008-2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health, 30, 379-392. DOI: 10.1080/15555240.2015.1047499.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021
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Simon Goncharenko, PhD, CSP, CSHO is the Director of Implementation at Veriforce, LLC, member of the Veriforce Strategic Advisory Board, avid researcher, and an engaging speaker. Having been born and raised in Eastern Europe, Simon’s 30 years of professional experience have seen him lead teams on three continents and in various industries, including oil and gas, construction, and data center sectors. His most recent employment prior to Veriforce was with Meta Platforms, Inc. former Facebook, where he supported the EHS on the construction of AI hyperscale data centers. Dr. Goncharenko has authored or contributed to the creation of over 80 articles and six books, the latest of which, Save Lives: Pushing Boundaries in Human Factors, provides ideas for human-centric operations and processes that will improve safety and organizational performance, while increasing employee engagement and job satisfaction. The companion training to the book, entitled Save Lives Global Human & Organizational Factors©, the world’s first and only human factors program designed specifically for the operators, builders, and contractors of mission critical facilities, has been widely popular with hundreds of participants around the globe. Simon is an animated and engaging professor and Master Trainer, charismatic keynote speaker, and podcaster of the Save Lives Global Podcast.
