A leading drug testing expert has cast doubts over the effectiveness and reasoning behind drug testing in the workplace, saying that there is little evidence to suggest it changes behaviour of employees and may in fact drive them to use synthetic drugs or ‘harder’ substances that leave the system earlier than others.

 

The deputy director of the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction (NICETA), Dr Ken Pidd, said that drug-testing in the workplace was fast becoming a ‘tick-a-box” response to a serious problem.

 

“Certainly there is very little rigorous research on the effectiveness of workplace drug testing and within that not much support for testing,” Dr Pidd told AAP.

 

Dr Pidd said that he believes that random drug-testing had led employees to preference synthetic drugs, such as Kronic and Jack3d, which have since been outlawed.