Vol. 9, No. 6, Pg. 14. Drug Prevention in the Workplace: A Review of Recently Enacted South Carolina Statutes.

• Author: By Nancy Hyder Robinson and Russell D. Ghent

South Carolina Lawyer

1998.

Vol. 9, No. 6, Pg. 14.

Drug Prevention in the Workplace: A Review of Recently Enacted South Carolina Statutes

14DRUG PREVENTION IN THE WORKPLACE: A Review of Recently Enacted South Carolina StatutesBy Nancy Hyder Robinson and Russell D. GhentThe tragedies associated with drugs in our society have moved from a law enforcement concern to a problem that affects virtually every institution in America, including the workplace. The American economy, even amidst current levels of productivity gained by effective management and quality labor production, has not gone untouched by our national drug epidemic.

Beginning in the early 80s, the courts and legislatures began attempting to balance an employee's reasonable expectation of privacy against an employer's reasonable and well-founded suspicions of drug use by employees in the workplace. Several states have enacted legislation to provide guidance for the implementation of workplace drug prevention programs. As a result, employee drug testing has become increasingly commonplace.

Experts estimate that 70 percent of persons who use illegal drugs are employed. In 1997, a survey of 10,000 major U.S. companies and organizations that employ one-fourth of U.S. workers reported that 74 percent of these employers conducted drug tests of applicants or employees.

Drug tests were routinely used by large employers to screen applicants and enforce drug-free workplace policies. However, drug prevention has not become a common tool of small employers, which make up the largest percentage of all U.S. employers. Alarmingly, 60 percent of employees using drugs work for employers of 500 or less employees. In 1997, to combat these alarming statistics, six states passed new alcohol or drug testing legislation and another five states amended existing law.

The South Carolina General Assembly enacted legislation in 1997 intended to further the goals of achieving drug-free workplaces in South Carolina. Sections 38-73500 and 41-1-15 of the South Carolina Code allow for the establishment of a drug prevention program in the private sector workplace, random drug testing, confidentiality of test results and related information, provisions regarding evidentiary admissibility of such information and reduced premiums for workers' corn pensation insurance for employers who provisions of §...