Boeing Arrests More than 3 Dozen Employees on Drug Charges

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Boeing Arrest points to

U.S. workplace drug problems

On-the-job prescription drug use is on the rise in America.

drug charges at a military aircraft plant. The arrests highlight the growing problem of prescription drug abuse by U.S. workers, experts said on Friday.

Federal authorities on Thursday charged 37 people, all but one of them current or former Boeing employees, with selling or trying to buy painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs at the company’s suburban Philadelphia plant. The federal agents infiltrated the Boeing factory: some workers cooperated in undercover deals.

At the Boeing plant, 23 of the 37 arrested were charged with the illegal selling of prescription medication, rather than using them.

Aside investigations, detecting prescription drug abuse is generally harder than it illicit drug use, such as marijuana or cocaine. Many employer would not catch workers abusing painkillers or other prescription medications.

Quest Diagnostics, America’s biggest corporation that conducts such testing, only screens 12% of job applicants out of 4.5 million last year. Oxycontin was one of four types of prescription drugs found at the Boeing factory. Quest noted that 3/4s of all tests happen before someone is hired and that it is difficult to detect workers who get addicted to drugs on the job.

Even with the testing gaps, much evidence indicates prescription drug abuse on the job is on the rise and are linked to more workplace accidents. Forty percent more American workers tested positive for prescription opiates or painkillers in 2009 than in 2005.

John Challis, vice president of treatment services at Daytop Village drug treatment facility in New York, stated If you think about the profile of the typical prescription drug user, they’re not going to be typical of other illicit drug use. It’s going to be in the normal places, like workplaces, colleges. That report about Boeing is inclusive of that.

Challis stated about the Boeing plant, I imagine [the facility] was seen as a network where you could have a captive audience and make sales. It’s an example of how much it (prescription drug abuse) has permeated into everyday life.

Celebrity prescription abuse often makes headlines, so experts say it is not surprising the problem spread beyond Hollywood. Some 2.7% of Americans reported using prescriptions for non-medical reasons in 2010, according to a yearly survey from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration earlier this month. Prescription painkiller abuse rose 400 percent over the past decade according to 2010 figures.

These statistics prompted the president’s administration to launch a fight against what it called a prescription drug abuse epidemic in April. As yet, no study have been conducted as to which industries have the highest incidence of prescription drug abuse.

DEA spokesman, Rusty Payne, said, These problems with prescription drugs, the addiction rates, the abuse rates, are happening in a lot of places that would surprise you. These are people who don’t fit the profile of a typical drug user.

Federal regulations do not require testing for prescription abuse for federal employees. But, a July meeting of a SAMHSA advisory committee recommended the government reconsider its decision.

Mad Mike’s America thanks Reuters.

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