Drugs and Alcohol - The Legal Position
- You have a general duty under the Health and Safety at Work (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 act to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of your employees.
- You also have a duty under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, to assess the risks to the health and safety of your employees. If you knowingly allow an employee under the influence of drug misuse or excess alcohol to continue working and his or her behaviour places the employee or others at risk, you could be prosecuted. Your employees are also required to take reasonable care of themselves and others who could be affected by what they do at work.
- The Transport and Works Act 1992 makes it a criminal offence for certain workers to be unfit through drugs and/or drink while working on railways, tramways and other guided transport systems. The operators of the transport system would also be guilty of an offence unless they had shown all due diligence in trying to prevent such an offence being committed.
- The Road Traffic Act 1988 states that any person who, when driving or attempting to drive a motor vehicle on a road or other public place, is unfit to drive through drink or drugs shall be guilty of an offence. An offence is also committed if a person unfit through drink or drugs is in charge of a motor vehicle in the same circumstances.
- The principal legislation in the UK for controlling the misuse of drugs is the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Nearly all drugs with misuse and/or dependence liability are covered by it. The Act makes the production, supply and possession of these controlled drugs unlawful except in certain specified circumstances (for example, when they have been prescribed by a doctor). If you knowingly permit the production or supply of any controlled drugs, the smoking of cannabis or certain other activities to take place on your premises you could be committing an offence.
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The Act lists the drugs that are subject to control and classifies them in three categories according to their relative harmfulness when misused.
- CLASS A -includes ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, LSD, mescaline, methadone, morphine, opium and injectable forms of Class B drugs.
- CLASS B -includes oral preparations of amphetamines, barbiturates, cannabis, cannabis resin, codeine and methaqualone (Mandrax).
- CLASS C -includes most benzodiazepines (e.g. Temazepam, Valium), other less harmful drugs of the amphetamine group, and anabolic steroids.
The penalties for offences involving controlled drugs depend on the classification of the drug. Penalties for misuse of Class A drugs are more severe than those for Class B drugs which in turn are more severe than the penalties for Class C drugs. The Act also distinguishes, in terms of the penalties that may be imposed, between the offences of possession and drug trafficking or supplying, with the latter attracting higher penalties.
It is possible that in certain circumstances charges may be brought against an employer or an employee under either this Act or the Health and Safety at Work Act or both. It would be up to the courts to decide on the circumstances of each case.
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