Imagine a World Without Pre-Employment Drug Testing—It’s Pretty Scary
By Bill Current
Founder of the Current Consulting Group
Imagine a world without pre-employment drug testing. More drug users will be applying for work with your company. More drug users will be hired by your company. More drug-related workplace accidents will occur. More non-drug-using job applicants will seek employment elsewhere. Your company will become known as the place where drug users go to find employment.
Thanks in part to the ongoing legalization of marijuana, drug abuse is on the rise. And with that trend we are seeing more employees admit to using marijuana during the workday or while on the way to work. And post-accident positive drug test results are at a 25-year high.i
The risks associated with discontinuing pre-employment drug testing are obvious, yet many employers have made the decision to no longer screen job applicants for any drugs, including marijuana. In a 2024 survey of drug testing providers, about 50% said that they have clients who have either dropped pre-employment testing or are considering doing so.ii Why?
Some employers struggle to find qualified applicants for job openings, and they’ve decided to blame drug testing for that trend. And maybe there’s some truth to that reasoning. In a government-sponsored survey, 30 percent of regular drug users who were employed full-time said they were less likely to work for a company that conducted pre-employment screening… 30 percent!iii (Note: 40% also said they were less likely to work for a company that conducted random drug testing.) For some employers that should be enough evidence that pre-employment testing is indispensable.
But there are other reasons why employers should continue screening applicants for drugs before hiring anyone. Here are three compelling reasons to conduct pre-employment testing.
First: Workday Marijuana Use
According to one recent survey, more than 22% of people currently employed who admit to using drugs regularly say they use during the workday, including remote workers. “Overall, people who work from home part-time or full-time are about 10% more likely than people who work full-time in offices to get drunk at work.” Further, “40% of people who work from home full-time say that they have gotten high before and during work hours.” iv
In another survey of employed marijuana users, 48% said they use pot at work, including during breaks and while they’re actually on the job. As if that were not bad enough, 31% said they use marijuana while on the way to work.v In other words, they’re showing up high and probably unfit for duty. The report also found that 60% of survey participants work for companies that do not conduct drug tests.
Pre-employment testing makes it possible to avoid hiring these people in the first place before you expose your company to the liability you’ll face when you hand over the keys to your company’s delivery van or forklift to someone who not only uses drugs but plans to do so while on the job.
Drug Users Are Expensive
There are many ways to add up what it costs to employ drug users, but we’ll only look at three that are typically of great concern to employers because they’re expensive: absenteeism, productivity, and turnover. As we do so, consider this: The average cost of each substance abusing employee is $8,817 per year stemming from lost productivity, increased accidents and workers’ compensation claims, according to findings from NORC at the University of Chicago and the National Safety Council (NSC).vi
Absenteeism— Substance abusers miss a lot of work. One survey found that 9 percent of heavy drinkers and 10 percent of drug users missed work because of a hangover, 6 percent had gone to work high or drunk in the past year, and 11 percent of heavy drinkers and 18 percent of drug users had skipped work in the past month.vii According to one source, unscheduled absenteeism costs companies roughly $3,600 per year for each hourly worker and $2,650 each year for salaried employees.viii
Productivity—Substance abusers are less productive than those who do not abuse drugs. According to the National Safety Council: “The typical worker misses three work weeks (15 days) annually for illness, injury or reasons other than vacation and holidays. Workers with substance use disorders (SUD), however, miss two more weeks annually than their peers, averaging nearly five weeks (24.6 days) a year. Most of these extra days of missed work are associated with illness and injury.”ix
The federal government once claimed that substance abusing employees were one-third less productive than non-drug abusing workers.x
Turnover— Replacing workers can be expensive. One report found: “One-fourth of currently employed workers report having more than one employer in the previous year. Employees with a substance abuse problem are much more likely (36%) than their peers to report having more than one employer per year. Workers with a prescription pain medication disorder are even more likely (42%) to have more than one employer.xi
Safe Workplaces
Let’s look at one more cost factor, workplace accidents. A large employee screening provider surveyed its clients and found: “When post-accident drug positivity for clients who do pre-employment drug screening is compared to that of clients who do not, the rate of change is pronounced. Clients that performed pre-employment drug screening experienced a 17% increase in post-accident positivity rates from 2019 to 2020; meanwhile, clients that did not perform pre-employment drug screening saw their post-accident rates more than double from 2019 to 2020.”xii
From a cost perspective, a drug-abusing employee who is, for example, 5 times more likely to cause a workplace accident would cost his or her employer much more than $8,800 per year. Just focusing on workers’ compensation costs, the average cost for all claims combined in 2020-2021 was $41,757.xiii
The same report found that “the most costly lost-time workers’ compensation claims by cause of injury result from motor-vehicle crashes, averaging $89,152 per workers’ compensation claim that occurred in 2020 and 2021.” Of course, driving is something drug abusers struggle with when they’re high on their drug of choice, be it alcohol, marijuana, or something else.
Conclusion
Pre-employment testing is not free, but when compared to what it costs to hire and employ drug users, the return on investment from drug testing job applicants always works in the employer’s favor. And if hiring the best possible workers is important to you, pre-employment drug testing will serve you well. After all, the best possible candidate for any job is someone who should be able to pass a drug test.
i Workforce Drug Test Cheating Surged in 2023, Finds Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index Analysis of Nearly 10 Million Drug Tests. Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index. May 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
ii 26th Annual Drug Testing Industry Survey. May 2024. Current Consulting Group.
iii Why Drug Testing. Page 34. Current Consulting Group.
iv The Prevalence of Substance Abuse in the Workplace. American Addiction Centers March 2023. https://drugabuse.com/addiction/substance-abuse-workplace/
v Cannabis Use During the Workday. Hound Labs. April 2023. https://houndlabs.com/2024/02/29/survey-offers-new-insights-about-cannabis-use-at-work/
vi New Analysis: Employers Stand to Save an Average of $8,500 for Supporting Each Employee in Recovery from a Substance Use Disorder. https://www.norc.org/research/library/new-analysis–employers-stand-to-save-an-average-of–8-500-for-s.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20analysis%2C%20the,%243%2C961%20per%20worker%20in%20recovery.
vii The Dangers of Substance Abuse in the Workplace. Verywell. September 2020. https://www.verywellmind.com/substance-abuse-in-the-workplace-63807. See also: “A Substance Use Cost Calculator for US Employers with an Emphasis on Prescription Pain Medication.” NCBI. September 2017. Misuse https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5671784/
viii White Paper: Absenteeism – the Bottom Line Killer. https://circadian.com/white-paper-absenteeism
ix Implications of Drug Use for Employers. National Safety Council. https://www.nsc.org/workplace/safety-topics/drugs-at-work/drug-use-in-the-workforce-whos-affected. See also: https://www.nsc.org/getmedia/9dc908e1-041a-41c5-a607-c4cef2390973/substance-use-disorders-by-occupation.pdf
x Why Drug Testing. Current Consulting Group. William F. Current. Page 10.
xi Ibid.
xii “Pre-Employment Drug Screening Correlated to Lower Post-Accident Drug Screening Positivity.” First Advantage. October 2021. https://fadv.com/blog/when-employers-stopped-drug-testing-during-covid-19-post-accident-drug-positivity-soared/ For more information, contact First Advantage at https://fadv.com/solutions/pre-employment-drug-screening/
xiii Workers’ Compensation Costs. National Safety Council. https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/work/costs/workers-compensation-costs/#:~:text=The%20unit%20statistical%20data%20were,about%20workers’%20compensation%20cost%20estimates.
