In a Fix Over Addiction

Drink and drug abuse is potentially a serious problem for business. But most companies fail to tackle it. Sarah Hanson asks what directors should do to discharge their duty of care and protect their businesses.

You can hardly open a newspaper these days without seeing something about drink and drug problems. And it's not just the Kate Mosses and Charles Kennedys who are making the headlines. One of the most disturbing and recent reports concerned a schoolgirl in Glasgow who collapsed after heroin use. She was just 11 years old.

But if there's a story that remains untold, it's the on about addicts in the workplace. Most people with drink and drug problems are ordinary people. They are not famous. They are not coping with the pressures of public life. And they are not socially excluded of living in areas of economic deprivation.

The 1999 report 'Drink, Drugs and Work don't mix' by the charity Alcohol Concern and the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence (now known as Drugscope) found that most people with a drink problem have jobs, as do 25 percent of those seeking help for problems with other drugs.

In a 2004 survey by Cardiff University for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), The Scale and Impact of Illegal Drug Use by Workers, 13 percent of working respondents reported drug use during the previous year. For respondents under 30, the rate of those admitting to drug use was as high as 29 percent.

The implications for companies are serious. Alcohol Concern estimates that some 11 to 17 million working days are lost to alcohol abuse every year, costing UK business up to £1.8bn. According to the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD), the annual cost of drug abuse are put at £800m.

Then there are the risks to the business when people drink or take drugs during working hours. According to Ben Wilmott, employee relations adviser at the CIPD, these include reduced productivity, damaged customer relations and lower workforce morale as well as specific health and safety concerns.

Under the influence od drink or drugs, employees operating machinery can make serious, sometimes fatal mistakes. And it's not any better for directors or senior managers. A firm's executives can easily derail the business. “Directors need to make important decisions – an ability which will be clouded by drugs or alchohol” says Brendan Quinn, ...But despite the dangers, many UK businesses still do little or nothing about substance abuse.

- Director, March 2006