More U.S. workers tested positive for illicit drugs in 2015 than they have in the past decade, according to data from more than 9.5 million workplace drug tests administered by Quest Diagnostics, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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The analysis clearly shows that drug use by the American workforce is rising, and according to the report, the trend extends to several different classes of drugs and categories of drug tests.
Although positive results are thrown out if a worker has a prescription for a legal drug, the survey still reflects illegal use, mainly driven by drugs like amphetamine, cocaine, and heroin. The analysis shows that the positivity rate for the urine drug tests increased to 4 percent in 2015, compared to 3.9 percent the previous year and up by 14 percent over the 10-year low of 3.5 percent in 2010 and 2011. Last year’s positive test rate was the highest annual rate since 2005, when Quest said 4.1 percent of tests came back positive.
Quest publishes data going back to 1988, when 13.6% of USA workers’ drug tests came back positive. Testing also became more broadly accepted as a workplace practice even for non-transportation jobs, particularly as a pre-employment screen. However, the research in NIDA’s study noted the surge in drug use could have been linked to the increase in marijuana use. Almost half of all workplace positive tests are for marijuana, with the number holding steady from 2014. Employers should be concerned about the impact on worker safety and health, consumer safety, productivity and more. The a year ago that the positivity rate for urine drug tests in the combined US workforce matched or exceeded 4 percent was in 2005, when it was 4.1 percent, said Quest.
The silver lining in the report is that the oxycodone positivity rate has declined for each year since 2011, confirming that opioid prescriptions have declined in 49 states since 2012.
While states that have legalized some form of the drug exhibit higher marijuana positivity rates, the numbers didn’t increase in Colorado and Washington from 2014, said Dr. Sample.
More troubling was an increase in detection of heroin. Drug users turn to heroin when it is “more hard or expensive to obtain extra prescriptions from physicians, or buy diverted pharmaceutical products” illegally, he said.
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But marijuana was by far the most common substance detected.
