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The problem with opiate use is a bit like what recovering alcoholics say about beer: "One is too many; a thousand is not enough." What starts as a perfectly reasonable use of the drug for pain relief, soon starts to slide into taking too many, too often. Once the patient slips from, "one pill every four to six hours," to "six pills a day," and then on to double figures, what started as a legitimate medical use has given way to addiction.
So if the 10 to 12 percent figure for impaired buy roxicodone employees is to be believed (and many addiction specialists think it's low), does that mean that if you work in an office with 30 people then three or four of them are under the influence of drugs and alcohol in the cubicles next to you? It depends. Certain industries over-represent for substance abuse, with construction jobs, trucking (despite constant so-called random "safety sensitive employee" testing), retail sales clerks, and assembly and manufacturing workers near the top of the list. But should you be more aware of co-workers who put themselves, or you, or your organization at risk with their drug use? (With accidents, erratic behavior, and theft being the biggest problems.) If you're a supervisor (or want to be one, one day), does that mean you have to be a micromanager and spy on everyone? Do you have to become the office tattletale? Or do we want bosses to simply monitor their workplaces for impaired employees and reach out to help them?