The cost of the methamphetamine epidemic doesn't appear as a line item on profit and loss statements, but the hidden expense is hefty for many employers.A recent study funded by the Wal-Mart Foundation determined that each meth-using employee costs his or her employer $47,500 a year in terms of lost productivity, absenteeism, higher health-care costs and higher workers' compensation costs.
The study, conducted in 2004 in Benton County, Ark., the home of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., surveyed 2,934 workers at many different local companies about meth. Then, using an economic model, the researchers calculated that the meth problem in that one Arkansas county alone was costing employers directly about $21 million a year.
"People were absolutely shocked," said Katherine Deck, associate director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, who conducted the study. "The numbers are really big when you think about what $21 million means to a relatively small community."
A 2005 study of neighboring Washington County, Ark., showed the direct cost of employee meth abuse to employers was $24 million a year.
Deck highlights the fact that these counties are relatively small, with a combined population of about 300,000, and the cost of meth users to employers in bigger cities with large populations could be much higher.
"They're costing employers in terms of lost productivity, lost work time, higher health-care costs and higher workers' compensation -- all of these things joined together," she said.
Deck recommends employers educate themselves about meth and raise employees' awareness about the drug.
"Employers everywhere certainly need to be aware of what's going on," Deck said. "It's a problem that is becoming dramatic very quickly. It's sneaking up on folks."
'An employer's responsibility'
Bob Thompson, an Atlanta attorney who has specialized in helping employers with substance abuse cases for more than 20 years, says the prevalence of meth cases has been "unbelievable in the past year or two."
"A lot of the questions on methamphetamine used to come about truck drivers or construction workers, but now it's from everywhere," said Thompson of Stites & Harbison PLLC. "It's so prevalent and so easy to get that it very quickly destroys their employees. You have bad performance on the job, poor quality of work, potential violence, and meth just makes people crazy."
For example, Thompson said, he worked on a case where a cement truck driver using meth poured cement in the wrong place on a construction site. When the client came running over to stop him, the driver became violent and got a gun out of his truck, threatening to kill the client.
If employers are ignorant about drug use in their workplace or turn a blind eye to it, they could face major liabilities, Thompson said.
Thompson, who helped write Georgia's laws that support the state's drug-free workplace program, urges employers to get educated about meth, arm themselves with drug policies and preferably become a certified drug-free workplace.
"I think it's critical for employers to know about this because one person with a meth problem can cause the ruination of a company. It can affect their relationship with customers, the government or other employers, the company's finances, everything," Thompson said. "It's an employer's responsibility to ferret it out."
Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Sunday, 29 January 2006
Source: Atlanta Business Chronicle (USA)
Author: Erin Moriarty
Website: http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/
Copyright: 2006 Atlanta Business Chronicle
