Guidelines for European workplace drug and alcohol testing in hair

Abstract

Drug and alcohol abuse is a concern for many European companies, especially those having safety-critical jobs. It is not uncommon for European companies to establish a drug policy with little or no provision for drug testing. The European Union (EU) has launched a number of initiatives in its fight against drugs. There is, however, no specific EU legislation and no generally accepted guidelines. Since the outcome of workplace drug testing (WDT) can have serious consequences for the employee, it is of utmost importance that WDT be performed in a defined quality standard and in a legally secured way. In order to fulfil this, the European Workplace Drug Testing Society (EWDTS) has formulated WDT guidelines in order to ensure that the entire drug testing process is of high quality, accredited, and legally defensible, hence giving accurate and reliable information about employee drug use while respecting the privacy of the employee. The aim of this paper is to present the recently formulated guidelines for workplace drug testing in hair.