Marijuana use up in Hawaii workplace
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 4:55 am | By: Radical Russ
Marijuana use up in Hawaii workplace – Pacific Business News (Honolulu):
Marijuana use in Hawaii workplaces increased in the first quarter of 2008 since the detection threshold was lowered, according to statistics from Diagnostic Laboratory Services.Marijuana use was up from 1.8 percent to 2.3 percent in the first quarter of 2008, with about 207 employees testing positive of the 9,000 tested.
“All in all these show no serious increase in drug abuse, other than the fact that we are seeing a truer picture of actual marijuana abuse in Hawaii,” said Carl Linden, scientific director of toxicology at Diagnostic Laboratory Services.
Linden said the first quarter was the first full quarter since the marijuana detection threshold was lowered.
Diagnostic Laboratory Services tested the 9,000 employees or potential employees between January and the end of March. The company conducts pre-employment and random drug testing for approximately 800 Hawaii businesses.
OK, here’s my problem with this article. First, the headline, “Marijuana use up in Hawaii workplace”. No, detection of marijuana users is up in Hawaii workplace. The way it is phrased makes it sound as if people are sitting at their desk passing around blunts.
Second is the quote, “we are seeing a truer picture of marijuana abuse”. Really? A whopping 2.3% of Hawaiians at work like a little pakalolo when they’re not on the clock? Wow, that’s more than one out of fifty, what a huge problem! I just have to ask this, if these 207 Hawaiians are in the workplace or applying for jobs, just how much of a problem is it?
Finally, interesting, is it not, that the lab has lowered the threshhold for detection. Apparently 1.8% wasn’t a big enough number to justify their operations. You know, if they lowered the threshhold to a true/false quiz (”Pakalolo” is Hawaiian for marijuana, true or false?) they might even bump that percentage into double digits!
Of course the whole thing is ridiculous, because as we all know, most marijuana users are excellent workers. The National Academy of Sciences put together a committee on drug use in the workplace, and they produced a book entitled Under the Influence: Drugs and the American Work Force that objectively studied this issue. They found “no difference in the annual incomes of households with and without current marijuana users.” They found that “workers testing positive at the time of hire were no more likely than workers testing negative to become involved in an accident.” They even found that “Firms with pre-employment testing, compared with firms with no drug testing at all, scored 16 percent lower on productivity measures.” The federal government found that the cost of each positive drug test worked out to about $77,000, and, in one study they found that “employees who tested positive at Georgia Power had a higher promotion rate than the company average, and workers that tested positive only for marijuana were absent 30% less often than the average.”
[Hat tip to the Cannabis Consumers Campaign]
Topics: Hawaii
