Cocaine use by isle workers doubles
Schechter Photography
Tauseef Anwar works on the evaporator in the Toxicology Department at Diagnostic Laboratory Services. Marijuana is the drug most used by Hawaii employees, DLS testing found.
Cocaine use in the workplace doubled in the fourth quarter from the year-earlier period while marijuana still remained the drug of choice.
Among employees and job applicants tested for drugs, 0.4 percent tested positive for cocaine during the final three months of the year, according to a report Tuesday by Honolulu-based Diagnostic Laboratory Services Inc. That’s up from 0.3 percent in the third quarter and double the 0.2 percent who tested positive for the drug in the fourth quarter of 2014.
DLS did not report the exact number of those tested, but said its quarterly sample size typically includes between 7,000 and 10,000 drug tests.
Marijuana use declined to 2.3 percent of employees in the fourth quarter compared with 2.5 percent in the year-earlier period. Hawaii use of the drug closely tracks the mainland’s 2014 rate of 2.4 percent.
The use of methamphetamine, or “ice,” continued to be a big problem in Hawaii with 0.7 percent of the workers and applicants testing positive during the fourth quarter. That is about four times the 0.17 percent average ice use found in workforce drug testing in 2014 on the mainland. Methamphetamine use last quarter in Hawaii, however, did decline from 0.9 percent in the year-earlier quarter.
Synthetic urine use remained the same at 0.8 percent in the fourth quarters of 2015 and 2014, while opiate use declined to 0.3 percent from 0.4 percent in the year-earlier period.
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19 responses to “Cocaine use by isle workers doubles”
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Use ice just as long as you don’t drive. Jump on the bus and ride with me. I need some entertainment to look at.
I work in one of the major hospitals here, and we have seen the devastation ice does to the body, besides becoming schizophrenic and psychologically damaged, many will come down with really messed up hearts. We are an island state but somehow we don’t seem to run out of supply of this dangerous drug.
Correct, I have seen the negative side effects and the long term things it does to a human body and mind.
agree and I have said the sAME thing for years. It is just a terrible drug. I am sure more can be done to impede its import. We know how it gets here and we know from whence it comes. We know who the dealers are. Go after them. Or the community will take care of it.
ooooo… allie the vigilante. the allienator. you do realize ice doesn’t need to be imported, right?
mike, you’re worse than all lie. Most of your posts are worthless.
Agree. Makes you wish “David at Mililani” were back commenting instead of reading the empty foolish one liners from Mike “cheap charley”.
Sorry if I hurt your bias. This is a family show for adults. Good news or not, the truth must be told here.
Disney Channel will never let you down. Bye.
Holiday season brings on this type of activity. Expect it to continue for another month.
So what happens when they test positive for illegal drugs? Are they arrested, fired from their jobs, or nothing?
If they test positive in the hiring process they are not hired. If they are tested as part of a job requirement, several things can happen but most will have the employ go to rehab and come back when clean. If the employee declines, they lose their job.
Here’s an interesting play with the 0.4% figure who are cocaine users. 0.4% means 4 out of 1000 are users or 1 out of 250. Now calculate how many are coke heads if our Oahu population is 1 million. It calculates to 4000 users. Is that high or low? How does this %age compare to Los Angeles and SF? Newark or NYC? San Diego or Tijuana? Is 4000 an acceptable figure to HPD? To Mayor Caldwell? No city can eradicate drugs 100%. Just manage it enough to keep the numbers low. The way to do this is to hurt law breakers by preventing them a means to earn a living. Pretty neat, huh? Please continue this strategy. It works. BTW this 0.4% is just for job applicant testers. It did not include students, job applicants in the private sector, tourists, terrorists, homeless bums, doctors or lawyers, shoppers, and so on. So the real figure must me much higher. Think about these things when you read news articles critically.
What about how it affects the homeless population if one cannot get a job to support self, let alone a family, God forbid. Sad, smoked since 15 and kicked the habit cold turkey at 32. Chasing 91 in June.
That’s .4% of job applicants or current workers, not .4% of the general population. The % is most likely higher for non-workers/job seekers.
Since this info is coming from the lab, we got to remember that its 0.4 that are getting caught how many more are using but smart enough to not get caught, I mean its in and out of system pretty quick and doesn’t take a medical degree to get around.
Cocaine could be made legal if it collected state tax for the hard up, politicians.
An article about illegal drugs in the business section. 🙂 Dealers take note..cocaine up, weed down. Time to diversify.
[…] – Argument for marijuana legalization – it’s not coke or meth. SA Use pot, not coke. […]