EMPLOYERS will be required to play a more active role if drug use is to be completely eradicated from the workforce.

And businesses need to come together and establish a single policy stating acceptable standards of conduct for employees.

Widespread drug use is driving the need for such initiatives, believes Vaughn Mosher.

The managing director of Benedict Associates, a company which tests people for illegal substances on behalf of the island's sporting bodies and employers, spoke out after Public Transport director Dan Simmons claimed widespread drug use was causing staffing problems at PTB.

"That totally coincides with our own experience," stated Mr. Mosher. "We do a lot of pre-employment screening for companies and we're finding a number of people ¿ even though they know they will be screened ¿ are not drug free."

In an interview with The Royal Gazette, the Public Transportation Board (PTB) head claimed widespread drug use is the reason why a 2007 Government pledge to run buses every 15 minutes between 6 a.m. and midnight on certain routes has yet to happen.

"It is our society. It appears to me that a lot of people are doing recreational drugs," he said.

According to Mr. Simmons, "a significant portion" of applicants fail PTB's pre-employment screening, with marijuana and cocaine most frequently detected, and to a lesser extent, heroin and PCP.

Alcohol, he added, is "found to a lesser degree because it is a legal drug. If a person was still drunk it would tell you ¿ that doesn't happen very often".

The PTB has had a random drug-testing policy in place for employees since 1994. Approximately five employees are tested monthly, with fewer than a dozen caught out each year.

According to Mr. Mosher however, the knowledge of such programmes do little to deter. In screening prospective employees, Benedict Associates has found evidence of drug use even where a company has described itself as a 'drug-free workplace' in its job advertisement.

"So there should be no surprise when they go for an interview but it's still there," he said. "They think because they haven't used in a couple of days it won't show up. Or, in order to camouflage it they take an adulterant.

"But we have mechanisms which let us know when we've taken an adulterated sample.

"We test for four different reasons. We do random testing, we test for reasonable cause, we do pre-employment testing and we do target testing."

Target testing, he explained, is where an individual known to have been using drugs is given a probationary period during which regularly testing occurs.

"Of the four types, pre-employment has a very high rate for people who are not drug free, which is consistent with (Mr. Simmons' comments)."

Despite that, the managing director said he took issue with some of the views expressed by the PTB head, most notably that cocaine is not a 'hard drug' and that urine tests frequently overlook alcohol because "it is a legal drug".

"I think (Mr. Simmons' comments) are revealing when he refers to heroin and PCP as 'harder drugs' than cocaine," he said.

"Cocaine is a drug that wreaks havoc in a person's life, first financially and then on health and family. And I would take issue with his alcohol comment. Alcohol has a short half-life. It's not there to show up the next day. Alcohol is practically entirely out of the system eight hours later, even after heavy use."

What is now important is for the community to have a common understanding of what is acceptable practise. In that light, he said, we need to stop using the phrase "recreational drug".

"I think the NDC (National Drug Council) has really begun to tighten up and give messages with greater clarity," he said. "And, I think this is consistent with the NDC notion, I think the use of the word 'recreational' condones it. Either it's drug use or it's not. We need to deal with that as a community.

"I think if our decision makers are wishy-washy, he working population will be no different. If we as a community and a group of employers have clarity, consistency and unity across different work populations then we would know what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.

"However, I think we're on the right track. The NDC needs to be, and is going to be, a leader but employers will play a major part in drug control as will family to (perhaps) a lesser degree."