Do Zero-Tolerance Drug Policies Really Work in Construction? 🏗️🔍

Drugs and alcohol policies are meant to keep construction sites safe. But what happens when those policies don’t match real-life behaviour on site?

In this episode, Jimmy from UK Construction Blog speaks with Nick McMurray from Positive Matters, a company working with construction businesses to rethink how they approach drugs, alcohol, testing and support. Instead of relying on old “zero tolerance” rules that are often ignored in practice, Positive Matters helps companies build policies that actually work.

Nick explains why most drug and alcohol policies fail, how inconsistent testing leads to risk, and why proper education and operating procedures matter just as much as the tests themselves. He also breaks down how support programmes, second-chance pathways and clear accountability can help employers protect their people without compromising safety.

What you’ll hear in this episode:

✔️ Why most zero-tolerance policies fall apart on real construction sites

✔️ The four pillars of an effective drug and alcohol strategy

✔️ The business risks of inconsistent testing

✔️ How support programmes reduce reoffending and improve retention

✔️ The reality of substance use across all levels of the industry

✔️ Common myths about "detoxing", flushing out substances and passive smoking

✔️ Why ketamine, CBD oils and new synthetic opioids are becoming bigger issues on site

If you manage teams, handle safety, or work in construction leadership, this episode offers clear insight into the behavioural pressures driving substance use and what employers can realistically do to protect both people and projects.

https://positivematters.co.uk

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-mcmurray-06b14628

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Transcript

From groundbreaking projects to game-changing innovations, the UK Construction Podcast brings you face-to-face with the industry's brightest minds and boldest thinkers. Each episode features candid conversations with construction leaders, architects, engineers, and on-site experts who share their hard-won insights and behind-the-scenes perspectives. We cut through the noise to deliver actionable intelligence on market trends, emerging technologies, and the forces shaping British buildings.

Jimmy: Welcome everyone, thanks for tuning in. Today we have Nick McMurray, founder of Positive Matters. I'm really happy about this one. Afternoon Nick, how are we?

Nick: Yeah, very well Jimmy, thanks for inviting us on. Great to be here.

Jimmy: Good man. Like I said to you on the phone, I've been banging on about this topic for so long to other guests and to people in the industry. It's been drip feeding into other podcast episodes. So it's great to have an actual full-on conversation with someone who advocates for it and whose expertise this is. Thanks for coming on. Fair play to you. I appreciate it. Can you tell us about who you are and what your organization does?

Nick: Sure. Positive Matters is founded by myself and another business partner, a gentleman called Peter Allen. Peter had a consultancy business prior to when we met and he actually sold it into one of the largest testing agencies in the UK. He was working within the commercial team doing that. He used to specialise in training, tenders, policy writing—that was his expertise in education. I was there from a sales perspective. I was a sales manager. We both felt there was a better way of doing things from that side. It's almost like they say a poacher turned gamekeeper sort of thing. We'd seen that testing aspect of how companies were using that.

We founded Positive Matters with a view to try to make it a bit more preventative and be a bit more strategic rather than—what I mean by that is because I think things like strategy and strategic gets banded around quite a lot, but what does that mean? It's actually tailoring it to your business and making sure it fits for your business rather than just dusting off a drug and alcohol policy when there's a problem and going, "What do we do?" We're trying to put in place the bits that make it a bit more strategic and a bit more preventative. That forms what we do. That was formed just short of four years ago. We started just in the end of lockdown, in the middle of lockdown. It's a good time to start a business.

Jimmy: Yeah. So it's going okay, is it?

Nick: Yeah, it's going okay. We're starting—when we started, you got these grand ideas. "Yeah, we'll be fine. We'll be good." I'll have to be honest with you, it is a struggle at times to try and get people because the concept that we're trying to sell is slightly different to what is the norm that's out there, which is just get a policy and we just test people. That's their strategy. We're trying to be a bit more helpful in that regard.

Jimmy: So you provide the actual testing yourself as well?

Nick: We do. I should probably clarify. We look at it in four areas when we work with a business. We would look at them in terms of helping them build and write their policy and their operating procedures. That's quite a key bit that gets missed—those operating procedures for the managers to actually implement it and make sure it's run consistently and fairly. It doesn't become "Oh well with Dave I'll do this but with John I'll do that." That's when you get into the ground of unfair tribunals, dismissals, and it causes problems. So we do the policy and procedures.

The big bit that we focus on is the education—tailored education and awareness around what are drugs and alcohol, how does this relate to the company and specifically how does it relate to the particular role that they do. We really dive in with the organisation to understand their roles and responsibilities so it doesn't just feel like a very vanilla "we've heard this before" kind of thing. It's very much "You work for company XYZ, your roles are this, therefore these are why we're doing this and this is what testing will be for you." We lay it out so everyone knows the rules so they hopefully don't inadvertently break them. That's the key bit that I think we focus on.

We do the testing, which we never really had the intention of doing, but we moved into that because when working with our customers, we found that they were hitting problems with the providers that were out there. We were like, "We could probably do something better for you." So we try and incorporate that with our ethos.

Then the big bit that we concentrate on is the support as well out the back. I'm sure we'll come on and talk around that. But we've developed quite extensively some different support services to help both the business and the individuals. So those are the four bits that we would always talk about as part of a strategy.

Jimmy: Yeah, so that's one of the main topics I wanted to talk about. You're integrating to try and change the zero tolerance culture sort of thing, aren't you?

Nick: Yeah, I think—and I've had objections from people before. "Oh, there's no deterrent if you do this. You're advocating that everybody gets a second chance. You can do what you want and you're going to get a second chance and there's no dismissal." And it's like, no, that's not what we're looking at. We're looking at an alternative way where you're trying to re-educate people and reframe it in a different way rather than just this blanket zero tolerance.

I think when it started out it was probably the right thing. It's safety. That's at the main heart of what drugs and alcohol is about—the safety of the workplace and the employees that are there. The reality is that you're employing humans and humans have—there'll be breakdowns, there'll be relationship breakdowns, financial worries, there could be bereavements. These are all factors that play into it. It might even be the stress of the job that's driving them as a coping mechanism. Just to turn a blind eye and go, "Well, we've got a zero tolerance, so you can't fail, basically, and you're gone." Yeah, it's tough. That's why we've developed what we've tried to develop in the services—an alternative that can be used rather than that.

Jimmy: So when was there a turning point or a moment when you realised that this needed focusing on?

Nick: I think it's always been there in the back of our minds. Coming from where we were previously, we've seen tribunals and cases where people are sacked instantly. It's almost like you're going back to tell the business and say, "Yes, it's a positive" and they go, "Right, okay, well, we'll get the disciplinary booked in." And you're like, "Well, hold on, have you done an investigation? What's the background to—you know, the steps that you need to get?"

That's why I think the operating procedures sometimes gets overlooked by businesses. You need to be clear on what you're going to be offering and certainly what support is available to them. That's not to say that everybody just gets a free hit and you go "You get one fail, that's fine." There has to be certain criteria that we've built into this. Obviously if they're dependent on drugs and alcohol, this isn't the right kind of reframing for them. This is more for a failed random.

I don't know—if my wife left me on Friday and I went down the pub and I drank too much and somebody offered me something and I did something stupid. There's a bit of a brain fart and you've gone "Right, I'm going to go and do this." You then come in on Monday and you get called in for random testing and you go "Oh." It's out of character perhaps for what it might be. Does that mean that we're going to lose you straight away or is there an alternative where we can educate you, put you back in with some sort of boundaries and some guidelines? They get retested again, there'll be unannounced testing that would take place, but they'd also have access to the support with some specialist advisors to talk about that as well. So it's hopefully putting it more into a structured framework of support rather than just "You're on your own."

Jimmy: Yeah, I think it's really important because with construction being the industry with the highest depression rate and the highest suicide rate, the problem—like you said on the phone—the problem is if you sack somebody, then it's likely going to cause a spiral effect, isn't it? They're going to probably drink more, take more drugs or whatever, or even go off and do it onto another site and do the same thing again and not learn from it. You need to get to the core of the problem, get to the root of it and try and establish and maybe support them through that rather than just kicking them to the curb.

Nick: We've seen a lot of times when we're talking to prospects or some customers where they've got a big supply chain and they're saying, "Yeah, yeah, that's fine. But these guys are gone. We've got such pressures to get the jobs done." They're almost—and this is what our thing with zero tolerance is—it's great to have it there, but what you actually find out when we dig under the surface and scratch the surface with organisations is they actually bypass it anyway. So they don't operate a zero tolerance. 

They'll just ignore it or say, "Oh, John's turned up drunk. Send him home. Don't test him. We need him for tomorrow. We don't want to rock the boat." And that straight away, you're like, "Well, what are you doing? If you've got the policy in place in the first place and you're saying it's a zero tolerance for everyone, it's got to be that. You can't pick and choose it."

This is where we're saying a better way maybe might be to look at alternatives. That's how it came about—looking at how we support that. Like you said, what does it do? It's probably more of an inconvenience, I would suggest now, because you would know better than I would, the stats for the shortages within the industry. People will probably have a job. 

They get sacked on the Tuesday, they probably got a job by the Thursday, or probably even the Wednesday, depending on where they are. So you're not actually resolving that person's issue. All you're doing is passing it to the other person, the new employer to pick up. It feels like that pass the parcel game—nobody wants to take ownership.

As an industry, maybe—and this isn't just construction. This is a whole societal problem. I think there's pressures within construction that make it unique. But as a society, there's more addictions and things like that.

Jimmy: Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. The only thing is in construction, obviously you've got the high risk factor. You've got people operating dangerous machinery and all that sort of stuff that could kill people. That's got to be addressed. But it's interesting you say that there is a zero tolerance policy. 

But like you said, I have seen it where people have just ignored it and just rushed it. I even know of a company—I won't say who they are—but if they know that there's a drug test booked in, they'll tell whoever it is, "Don't come in today, come in tomorrow, go to another job," and then when they've gone, you can come back. You've got to get rid of that sort of culture. But unfortunately, I think for many reasons, if you were to test everybody tomorrow in the industry, you'd probably lose 40%.

Nick: I think so. So what's going on? I think the industry is partly to blame for that—all the pressures that are involved in it and all the rest of it. It's interesting you say that because we talk about drugs and alcohol and where that sits in a wider piece. You've got your health and the wellbeing and then you've got your safety and the risk. It doesn't sit solely in one camp and it doesn't sit solely in the other. 

It's a cog, pardon the pun, within the wider piece where it drives off a lot of things. Obviously the mental health aspect that's driving with suicide rates and things like that—drugs and alcohol are bound to have a factor within that somewhere.

We can talk about some of the work we've done with a non-for-profit organization where we were going out and doing some interviews on their behalf, completely independent, just trying to look at suicide. Drugs and alcohol was part of our area of expertise which we were talking about. 

The amount of people that would say "Yeah, I know people that have turned up under the influence" or "Yeah." And that's where the zero tolerance thing—what's the attitude? What's your policy? And everyone would to the word say "Yeah, we've got zero tolerance." And you go "Okay, so what does that mean?" And when you start asking, that's where the difference comes from. It's the tick box compliance poster that we stick up and say "Yeah, zero tolerance, we don't accept drugs and alcohol on site." And then when others are coming on there and you're asking the guys specifically "Okay, have you had any education? Do you know what—are you allowed to go down the pub at lunch? Are you allowed to have an alcoholic drink in your lunch break?" Those are the kind of bits that you need to understand to really drive proper change, I would suggest, or an understanding of what's acceptable, what's not, so they don't break the rules.

Jimmy: Yeah. I mean, it was acceptable probably 20 years ago, wasn't it? Go down the pub and have a few beers and then come back and get back on it. I mean, someone told me the other day a crane operator used to—he couldn't do his shift without him sending up a four-pack of beer, otherwise he'd have the shakes all day.

Nick: Right! Yes, yes. It's a different state of affairs, isn't it? Yeah. And we're laughing at the joke, but like you say, there's—you said rightly, there's the threat of danger of life. You're using big materials and operating heavy plant and things like that. We have had some people go, "No, you've got to keep zero tolerance because there has to be that threat. Otherwise, there's no kind of—"

I think I would say to this is that for businesses, they probably need to—what's the culture? You say, "Oh, we've got a great culture here. We look after our people and we do all of this stuff." And you go, "Okay, great. Tell me a bit more. Where would you point them?" We try and help look at it from two lenses, really—one for the employer, how can we help them to mitigate their risks, but also to build a framework where they know where to go, because sometimes they might want to do the right thing.

I would probably say most employers do want to do the right thing. They just don't know how to. What does good look like? How do we get to that?

Then there's the bit for the individuals where they're trying to then go, "Okay, I'm struggling, I need some help." But there's also accountability as well. You can't just come in and go, "Oh, my wife's left me, I can do what I want, I can snort cocaine till the cows come home and go down the pub." There has to be some level of accountability. So it's getting that balance right between the two. And hopefully this—

Jimmy: Yeah, that is right. That is right. But it reminds me actually what you just said there. There was an operator on one of my jobs once, a crane operator, and he liked a little bit of sniff of an evening. He's like, "Oh, they get on my nerves. They just try and run your life. I like to enjoy life. They're trying to run your life and stop you doing this." And we're like, "Mate, it's not about that. It's not about trying to run your life. It's about you're not killing people and making the right decision, not clouding judgment." So companies like yourself coming in, trying to adopt that proper culture is really important. But do you get much pushback from companies, from employers?

Nick: Yeah. So we get—I wouldn't say we get pushback from employers as such, because obviously most people—we've got a broad spectrum of customers that we work with, rail customers. Rail, we probably use the example because if you fail within the rail industry, you lose your PTS card and you're out of the industry for I think it's five years from that perspective. 

We've actually worked with them in terms of putting some of our support services in place because even though they might say "I'm drinking maybe too much" or "I have got a problem with cannabis or whatever," if they go and seek that help first then it's a very different conversation to just sitting and waiting and hoping they don't get picked up.

Whatever we do with any organisation, it's always about trying to encourage them to come forward and through the education that hopefully comes through is that if you come and ask for help, we will give it to you. That's the change. I think when businesses are coming to us, I don't think there's any resistance perhaps to that.

The positive change piece that we talked about around that second chance from a zero tolerance perspective, that's almost—if I give you some context, it's like a speed awareness course. If you're caught speeding, do you take the points or do you do the course? It's a bit along those lines how we built it. You go through, you complete the course, it's about a four hour intensive course. There's two follow up unannounced tests at the back, which again, you've got to provide as negative tests. And then there's also some access and some takeaway learning that they can do as well themselves. 

That's the bit perhaps where we get the most resistance, because people are like, "No, no, no, we've got zero tolerance, this is how we deal with it." They're almost stuck in their way of thinking. You can only say, "Okay, that's fine, as long as it's working for you, but just to let you know, there is an alternative if you want to discuss it."

Jimmy: I imagine some could argue that someone's failed a test once and they don't deserve to be back on site.

Nick: Yeah, I guess there is, you could say that, but then I think if you look at it from a perspective of looking at the investigation—it's not to say this is a carte blanche everybody gets it as soon as there's a failed test. There has to be certain criteria that the organization feels this person meets. For example, if your gentleman that turned around and said "This is what I'm doing, they're trying to control my life," if he failed a test and he came out with that answer, he's probably not the right person to put on to that course. There has to be a right kind of "Yeah, I've made a mistake, I'm really sorry. This is what's happened in my life. I want to try. Can you help me basically?" And then they'll try and help on that regard.

Jimmy: So what if someone fails a test, they do your course, great, they're happy, and then the next week they fail again?

Nick: Then it's a different story. You don't get—you don't keep going on that. I think it's very clear on the course that we say "You've got a second chance here. You haven't been sacked. The company's invested into you. If there is another positive test, then it's a different outcome from there." And then obviously they'll go down, hopefully do another further investigation, and then it might be down the disciplinary process.

Jimmy: So is there a business benefit for companies?

Nick: Yes, for a business benefit. Well, certainly from a retention perspective. Again, I would argue that if you're investing into somebody that's—these are people that potentially at low times, that are struggling, that to actually invest in them and show that you actually "We're going to put an arm up, we are going to support you, we do value you," then yeah, there's a return on that.

With such a demand on supply chain and workforce, it also gives them—you're not going to be behind on the jobs. You sack somebody, you test six people on site, two of them come back as positive and you go, "Great, that's half of the gang that needed to do this work today." You've got to bring somebody in to replace them. You're behind on the job. Everything's tight, tight, tight. So it has a knock on concertina effect. 

And that's why we see sometimes that the rules get bypassed because of that monetary budget, timeline pressures. They just go, "You know what, let's just sweep this one away rather than address it and deal with it."

Jimmy: Yeah. Did that answer your question? I'm sorry.

Nick: No, it did. No, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Jimmy: But I think also it's important to highlight that it's not just—did I mention this earlier? I can't remember. It's not just the people on the ground. It's not just the operators, the labourers. This trickles up to management as well.

Nick: Oh, it's everyone. Yeah, it's everyone. It's from the top right the way down to the bottom, it should be. There's different pressures within different—if you say the senior managers, they might have completely different pressures to the guys that are out doing the day work, so to speak. It doesn't stop them from having addictions or turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms. It's not even just that really.

Jimmy: I mean, I've been on jobs where you have your team building exercise and they go out for meals and drinks of an evening and stuff like that, put it all on the card and they come in. I mean, I know one senior manager come in and I just said, "Look at the state of you" and they're like—they told me to f*** off basically, jokingly, but looked in a proper state. And I know there was one manager once they went down a pub, said to the guys "Coming into the toilet for a quick run?" So it does go on and again where does that come from? It's come from somewhere. Is it the pressures, the deadlines? Is it just like a little bit every now and again recreational?

Nick: Yeah. And everybody—I think you're right, it's not big brother. If people choose to do that in their own time, and we're quite clear with businesses when we say this, you don't control them in their own time. What you're very clear on is when you come on and you start and work for us, this is the expectations and this is what we accept as acceptable. So you're very clear on that piece. It's been—we've tried to just build a couple of blocks after that in case there is people that fall down so it's not quite so black and white. 

There is a gray area there that you can—we don't really want to lose this person because we're behind or whatever and it gives them that alternative. I think it gives the businesses an alternative, should I say. It's probably the best way to describe it rather than just a "Hands are tied, you got to go" sort of thing and it causes more pressure.

But you're right in what you're saying in terms of people, whatever they decide to do, there'll be salespeople, there'll be managers or whatever keeping clients happy. We've had cases of people buying drugs in some cases for clients to keep them happy and go out all night entertaining the customers and then turn up and then you're like, "Wow."

Jimmy: So are there any sort of myths you can debunk in regards to getting these substances out of your system? We've had quite a few different ones.

Nick: Yeah.

Jimmy: Like sucking a 2p or something like that to beat a breath alcohol test.

Nick: Yeah. That doesn't work. I think the biggest misconception is sometimes people go, "Oh yeah"—it depends on what type of test you're doing as well. In terms of if you're doing a urine test, drugs typically stay within the system for 3-4 days. If you're using oral fluid it's probably between 24 and 48 hours. So again that's some of the myths.

We had a failed drug test and it was on a Thursday. And they said, "Oh, no, no, it wasn't that because I only do that at the weekends." And we were like, "You use oral fluid, don't you?" And they were like, "Yeah, yeah." I was like, "That's a midweek use that's caused that fail. It's not nothing from the weekend that's carried over that long."

Those are some of the ones you see—people with camel bags and trying to keep urine warm and stuff. Sometimes we go, "If you go into that length to hide a drug test, you've got a serious problem in that regard." But also it's quite inventive in some ways.

Jimmy: What about you get your passive smoking one. People say, "Oh, I didn't smoke. I wasn't smoking. I was in a room full of people who were smoking." Is that possible?

Nick: No, very rare. I mean, obviously, because you're taking it into the lungs—I won't go into too much, scientists will know much better than me—but yeah, no, it does. There's cutoffs as well to what it should be. So the cutoff should be at a level where passive smoking won't cause you to do that. There is probably an argument to say if you know that you do have drug testing take place at work, don't sit in a room with people that are blazing away. You want to probably try and take yourself out of that environment just for the sake of it.

Things like CBD oils as well. Those are ones that have come up quite recently. There's quite a wide range in terms of the quality of them. When we do the drug test, you're looking for the THC element, which is the psychoactive element of it. Obviously medicinal cannabis and things like that, or the CBD oils, they take that bit out. There's still a little bit, but some of the unlicensed ones weren't. So you could genuinely get people that were testing. But again, that comes back to educating people to say if you're taking CBD oil for legitimate reasons, just make sure it's from a reputable source. Don't buy it from Amazon and just expect it to be fine. It says it's all right.

Jimmy: Yeah. I must admit, I've been taking it for years and I did email the company beforehand. I said, "Look this is the score, my job and that" and they were quite curt in their response but it was as if to say "Well it's obvious, we're zero percent." I was like "Well I don't know, I had to check."

Nick: You do have to double check. Yeah, yeah, you do have to double check. I was going to say—I don't want to end up with a lawsuit against me so I'll check.

Jimmy: Yes. I went on to a job once. I was on cover. It was at Nine Elms Vauxhall. There were three of us turned up for induction. We were there because I think three people had been gotten rid of because they failed a drug and alcohol test. So half a day gone. I wasn't meant to stay there. I was meant just to have the induction and go home. I was getting paid for the day. I thought, "Lovely, that's all right, go home." But one of the guys who's been inducted—we all had to have tests done before, well, during the induction. 

One of them failed. So great. He failed. They're like, "We're going to have to test you again in a little while." He's drinking loads of water. I said, "I've got loads of water in me," drinking loads, buying bottles and tap water. I don't know if that's real or not or whatever, but he fouled basically. So I had to stay there and do some work, unfortunately. So is that another one? Can you get rid of it by drinking loads of water?

Nick: I mean, if you're doing urine, obviously the way that your body—it's excreted through the water system. So you try and flush it out. But I'll be honest with you, you'd typically—if somebody's failed, you would sit with that person and watch that they don't drink too much water from that perspective. So there is a certain amount you could flush it a little bit if it's just on the border maybe, but the reality is it probably doesn't make that much difference. 

But again, if the testing procedures are chain of custody procedures, typically somebody would sit with them to limit—and you get people that have shy bladders so they won't be able to go. So in that case, you give them a certain amount of water over 10, 20 minutes to allow them to go. So again there is certain things.

Funny enough, I'm doing something at the moment for an occupational health company that we work with around drugs and they wanted a specific one on drugs. I've been doing—I know it's my sort of day job in what we do—but doing specifics around some of the drugs that we look at and things like ketamine, which is a huge problem at the moment. 

There's a really good Panorama documentary—I don't know, it's half an hour. It's well worth a watch in terms of it highlights how cheap and how readily available it is, but also how much damage it does to the body.

But also things like the edibles and things like vapes and things like that, again, are being released. There's nitazenes, so they're like the synthetic opioids that are coming through. You've probably seen like the US—fentanyl and things like that. But they're hugely problematic and sometimes being put into people's vapes, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

Jimmy: Really?

Nick: Yeah, it's cannabis vapes and stuff that are coming through. We've heard of cases where even where schoolchildren have had their—I think there's a study done where they took a certain amount from England, and they tested them, and there was a certain percentage that contained spice within them, and you're thinking, "Wow."

Jimmy: I mean, is this not regulated? Is this not tested before it's put out on the shelf?

Nick: Again, it's where do you get it from? You can get it from dark web, you can get it from certain places, and again, how legitimate is it in terms of that? If you're looking at proper medicinal cannabis in the US, it's probably about 60 pounds something like that, whereas you can buy a vape for like a fiver and it's laced with spice. So it's that level of—wow.

Jimmy: Yeah, that is crazy. So ketamine is horse tranquilizer isn't it?

Nick: Yeah, essentially. Yeah.

Jimmy: Yeah, that's what I thought. That's mental. That is crazy. And it's not only that they cut it with other drugs as well, don't they?

Nick: Yeah, so it gets cut with lots of different—typically more grainy than cocaine. Again, cocaine gets cut with whatever. But yeah, the granule, the ketamine is quite harsh. It looks almost like sugary in that regard. But yes.

Jimmy: So what's the standard method of testing these days?

Nick: Standard? Well, there's a couple. I would say we've certainly seen a shift. Gold, pardon the pun, gold standard is urine. So that's what they would do on the railways. They've also—I think there's been a change that they can do oral fluid as well. When we look at advising companies, it's what's the options and what's the best thing for you? It could be urine obviously gives you a greater window to look at that, but sometimes do you actually want that greater window if it spills into the sort of weekend time?

Things like the police and the other pre-employment, they look at hair testing. So that's you looking at three months worth, so you're looking at their lifestyle obviously because they're not doing—in theory they shouldn't be doing anything from that perspective. I'll probably say there's hair, there's a new one sort of sweat that's come out. I don't know how well that's been—I don't know whether it has ever been legally challenged yet. 

There's intelligent fingerprinting of the company that do that one through sweat testing. There is urine and oral fluid, but we're certainly seeing more of a shift towards oral fluid rather than urine.

Jimmy: Yeah, I did a saliva test on my last test that I did on induction day. That was a saliva one. What's the most accurate?

Nick: Well, the point of care test, I've got a couple of them lying around. They cost potentially like a tenner max. So they've obviously got a set standard within there—they've got some level of accuracy. It's high 90s. It's like 98%, 99%. But that only gives you a screening result really. So you should never really act on that.

Jimmy: Was that the hair test?

Nick: No sorry, the oral fluid.

Jimmy: Oh okay.

Nick: Yeah so that's what we would call a screening. It's called POCT—Point of Care Test. That really just tells you what drug groups you're looking at. So the main groups you normally have like amphetamines, methamphetamines, benzodiazepines, cocaine, cannabis. There is more. Ketamine and tramadol have been recently added to some of the more recent panels, which we would obviously advise customers to look at as well because of the increased usage.

But they really just give you an indication of whether there's a drug being detected. What you then do is your full chain of custody, if there is one, that you send it back to a laboratory and they're the analyzers. These are quarter of a million, half a million pound analyzers that look at the actual molecular stuff that goes through. 

That's far too—I won't go into that level of—the liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, that's what they look at in terms of breaking that down. So that's when you then get your result back from the laboratory. That's your positive. That's what you should act on as your positive.

So that first stage, we would normally say it's even negative or non-negative. And it could be because of declared medication. It could be because of poppy seeds sometimes cause opiate positives. So those are the kind of things that we would look for.

Jimmy: Yeah, so I think it's important. Medication-wise, I mean, we get memos sometimes where you have to declare what we're taking. Like say if you're on Cocodamol or whatever, then declare it to the company so that if you do get flagged up, then you say, "This is why." So there's that as well. That needs to be put out there. What I was going to say—so I'm assuming what companies choose depends on cost, does it? Like the method of testing?

Nick: They're typically around the same. I mean, when you're looking at testing side of things, you could call out an agency to do it. We do do that in some cases. We work with agencies. You could even call us out in some regards for planned testing. There is the ability to test yourself. So you could train your teams up to be able to do it yourself. That's quite good in terms of you doing a lot of pre-employment or if you're working night shifts and you've got a big enough team to be able to cover it, then that sometimes works well. But that really does depend on the cost.

We see a blur sometimes, so sometimes companies will do the initial screening and then if there's a non-negative, they'll call out an organisation to come and do a full back to lab process. So it's a bit of both, really. But yeah, I mean, obviously testing costs money. That's the reality of it.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Let's go back to the course. So how does it—what's the process from the failed test to going through the course? You have an assessment by yourself or the course company?

Nick: No, so basically we would allow the business—the organisation would have access to it. If they did get somebody that failed and they wanted to rehabilitate them, I guess is the best way to say it, and they've got access to positive change, they will just notify us and we will then work. The course is delivered by our charity partner who's got over 45 years of experience of working with drugs, alcohol and gambling. They're based in the Midlands, but we do it remotely. So it's all done like we're doing now, from online. They would be able to go on and do it very similar to what we're doing now, just do it remotely so that people will be able to join a call.
It's about four hours intensive looking at lifestyle and behaviour change, basically looking at the behaviours that's caused them to obviously fail a drug test and just try and give them some coping mechanisms to be able to make potentially better decisions around how they're coping with certain life factors, and the choices that they make.

Once they've done that, they'll get a course completion thing to say the person's completed the course. Then we will, within the next couple of weeks, there will be a couple of unannounced random tests that will come through. And then also for the individual, they'd have six months out the back end of the course to call through and talk to the specialist advisors from there. So they get a bit more extra support that they need rather than just four hours and then "Okay, you've changed."

If they feel like they—there's also some workbooks that they would take away. So there'll be stuff that actually helped them to take away a bit of reflection. One of the examples would be somebody always ends up doing cocaine at the end of the night. So they go down the pub and their mates end up going, "Oh, let's go and get some bags in." It's just trying to get out of that habit of doing that. Just leave the pub a bit earlier before that gets to that point. It's hard but it's just trying to give them those mechanisms to try and take them away from that certain environment or if there's certain triggers, how do they knowingly know that and then how do they avert that so it's not just becoming that vicious cycle of "Okay, this is always going to happen."

It sounds very simple when you say it like that. It's a lot of work that goes into it. And obviously the specialist advisors are well versed in having those conversations to support them. So that's it in a nutshell in terms of how it works.

There's obviously a cost involved. We would typically charge the organization. But in some cases, the organization might even say to an individual, "Look, we're not going to sack you, but we want to know that you're committed to this." So there might be a small monetary association to it as well just to gauge how committed they are to that. But that's completely down to individual organizations how they want to do it.

Jimmy: Yeah. So what do you do with or what do they do with an individual who might have a real problem that you probably feel that isn't going to benefit from the course, it's going to re-offend?

Nick: Yeah so there's other ones. There's lots of great fantastic charity supports out there as well. Certainly I think within the construction industry there's a number of good ones as well. We've got one called Positive Support and that's for somebody that knows that they're drinking or their drug use is higher than it should be or is problematic to them. They would get in contact that way. So that would either be a referral from the business or depending on how the business has it set up, they would allow a self-referral for that individual.

Then what they would essentially do is make contact with one of the specialist advisors again, and then they would book in some sessions from there. It's more tailored—it's hour-based sessions that really drive on an individual level, that person, that particular case that they're working through. In some cases it might not be relevant for them. They might just do a hand-holding case because they might need medical detoxification if it's at real high levels, in which case they would then support them into that longer program, whether that be through local support or whatever.

The company that we work with, the charity partner, they actually support the GPs. So if you go and see your GP and you go around that way, obviously there's a longer wait time sometimes when we hear horror stories of people waiting for support. This bypasses that wait time and within two weeks you're probably having a couple of sessions already rather than waiting six months.

Jimmy: Cool. Yeah, so fast tracking them. What is—so what's—do you know the most common types of fails or the most common types of lifestyles that would fail?

Nick: So the drugs that we see that most fail still is cocaine and cannabis. In terms of the lifestyles, I think it varies, to be honest. You kind of bracket it in terms of you see your younger generation where they'll be out partying and doing all stuff that I used to do many moons ago. So they typically will fail for the ecstasies, the cocaines, cannabis. What you tend to find as well is that you don't just get one positive. So it might be like a positive for cocaine, but you might get positive for cocaine and cannabis. So somebody's had that trying to calm themselves down after a big weekend or whatever.

For the older generation or the aging generation, it's self-medicating. So again, it might be opiate-based medication. It might be things like tramadol. And this is where I think it blurs the line sometimes. Yes, they've failed a drug test, but they're almost self-medicating because they're broken in that regard. They feel so broken in the body that if they take some Tramadol, they know they can get through the working day. And you don't want to get to that position where sometimes it's not even prescribed for them. It's prescribed to another family member that they've just taken. "I've taken my wife's tablets just to get me through the day or whatever." So from there.

That's just a broad rule. You still get people in their 60s sitting down and tucking into bags of cocaine. It's not an exclusive club to just the younger generations. It does affect everyone.

Jimmy: I find in my industry the travelling workers tend to get flagged up a lot. People staying in digs, got nothing else to do. They go down the pub all night, have a few beers with the gang, whatever gang they're in, all get together.

Nick: I think that comes back to, like we were talking about, for the construction industry, there's a number of outside factors that elevate the risk of drug and alcohol use more. Like you say, being away from home, the quality of the work, not having those connections when you come home sometimes from a long, hard day—it's going to take its toll. So they're looking perhaps for escapes or they're just "Well, that's what everybody else is doing." So they feel like they want to keep up with "I've got to be one of the lads. I've got to keep in with the crew." So I'll do what they do.

Jimmy: So how far do we go with this in terms of the course? Do you think it should become mandatory?

Nick: I'd love it to be mandatory. I'll be brutally honest. I think it has to work for every organisation and it's got to fit with what you're trying to do as an organisation. We debated this the other day—is zero tolerance outdated in terms of the terminology? Or should it be "safety first" or something like that? Because you don't want to—as I said before the whole reason for drug and alcohol testing in the first place was you wanted safe sites. You don't want to diminish the safety aspect of it. It feels like it's just become very lip service, tick box. You put it in big bold letters, you can underline it, you can do whatever you want, but does it actually resonate?

My argument would be, if you look at the current state of it, like you said, if you tested everybody tomorrow within the industry, I reckon 40% would be pretty good. I think it's probably a bit higher than that.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so. There definitely is a culture for it.

Nick: Yes. Well, anything else you'd like to add? I think I've covered everything I'd like to. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?

Jimmy: No, I just think it—what do I say? I think it's just down to businesses really in terms of, as I said at the beginning, it is a societal problem, so it naturally spills into the workplace. I think anybody that says "We don't have a problem with drugs and alcohol," their head's buried in the sand. It is there within your business, whether you know about it or not. It's how do you try and manage that, I would suggest, in a better way. And having this caring culture—"Oh, yeah, we do great wellbeing and we do this sort of stuff"—that has to translate, I would suggest, through everything you do. It can't stop at the subjects that are sometimes a bit too hard to tackle.

Jimmy: Yeah, I think in managerial terms, I think there are some probably blocking factors, though. You have accountability factor, because what if they get tested and then they fail? A pride thing. Does a senior manager or something want to go through this or be seen to go through this program and maybe appear weak or maybe appear like a liability? Are they going to want to sweep it under the carpet and just try and play their flute through? There's a number of factors.

Nick: One thing I would say on this is in the fact that we've developed Positive Change because we think it's the right thing to do. And we genuinely are listening to what outcomes are from individual organizations that we're talking to. We can't do it on our own. There is collaboration here. I'm a massive advocate for collaborating. There's Craig Payton—I don't know if you know Craig—and Nico Shay and people like that. These are great guys that I've had conversations with that are singing the same sort of song around mental health and addiction. I think you had Steve on, didn't you? Steve Kirby as well. Again, great advocate for what he does.

We haven't got the lived experience of going through that. So it's almost—we might be able to help and support in terms of some of the support services, but I would suggest if businesses are thinking about it, you don't have to just go with one provider and go, "Oh, we've got that covered." We can wrap around. If your testing program is working fine, but it's not delivering the bespoke training that you need, we can perhaps come in and plug that gap. Or if you've not got the support that you need, we can come and do that. Or if it's some education and support front end to talk to, Nick or Craig or whoever could do that in collaboration with us. 

Anybody that says that they can do it all on their own, I would be wary of it. It's around collaborating and working to get the best results.

Like you said earlier, we're in a trade shortage. We need trades. Tradespeople need work. The industry is in a depression crisis. So why not try and help as many people as we can, try and keep them in work and get them through this problem, whatever the problem is they've got.

Jimmy: Yeah. I think companies have got a duty, they should have some kind of responsibility for that. They've got a bit of a duty of care to do that. So keep doing what you're doing, mate. Well done. Hopefully you can get on more podcasts and get on the radio or whatever.

Nick: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think for us it's just slowly, slowly. You've got to try and change the mindset of the industry in some cases. But I think there are—we're starting to see some green shoots and some forward thinking, should I say, or thinking outside of the box in terms of that.

Jimmy: Do you go out onto sites to do talks and site visits and things like that?
Nick: Haven't done as much as that, but we're not averse to it. I think that's where it comes in terms of when we're talking about collaboration, sometimes I think I could probably do a job, but I know that someone like Craig or Nick will probably do a better job coming from the industry. I think perhaps sometimes works better. We might be able to give some of the backup and the support behind what they're doing for the business. But maybe they're—if they look at me and go, "Okay."

Jimmy: Thanks so much for your time, mate.

Nick: No problem. It's been an absolute pleasure. Hopefully I can speak to you again in the future and maybe on my podcast.

Jimmy: Yeah, love to. Yeah, whatever. See how things are progressing for you. Great stuff.

Nick: Thanks, Jimmy. Really appreciate it.

Jimmy: All right, take care. Cheers.

Nick: You too. Bye, mate.

Jimmy: Bye.