Glenn Dobson: Drug Detection Agency CEO on the increasing number of positive cocaine and amphetamine results in workplace testing
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What do the latest workplace drug testing results reveal about cocaine increases?
Latest drugs in the workplace report. This is always fun, isn't it? Shows cocaine's on the rise. Positive tests are up 68% year on year. Canterbury's up 375%, so there'll be something weird about that. Amphetamine-type substances, 32% of all those positive tests. Glenn Dobson, drug detection agency boss, is back with us. Glenn, morning to you. Yeah, good morning, Mike. So what do these stats tell us? The amount of drugs or the type of drugs?
Now, look, I guess if there's a silver lining in this, is that the actual overall detection is slightly down. So we're seeing slightly less drugs. So we'll take that as a positive.
How much have positive cocaine tests risen year‑on‑year and why does Canterbury show a 375% spike?
We'll take that as a win, which is really good. But the headline is that the trend has been continuing for a while, and it's certainly that cocaine positive rates are up, as you say, just over 68%.
But having been swapped out from something else. So in other words, I'm still taking my drugs. I'm just taking a different drug. Is that what's happening?
Yeah, potentially, potentially. One thing we know is that cocaine on a global scale is up massively. Our Australian stats show the same picture, and I was in the States a couple of months ago, and they're talking that their cocaine rates are up hugely as well.
Okay, so the Canterbury 375%, what happened there? That's an outlier, surely?
Yeah, what we're seeing is that there's a real large spread regionally, and that's one of the really important parts of getting this information out to the region so the employers in different regions can see what their risks are and what we're seeing in different regions across the country. Canterbury, Otago, down the south on there, they had a huge increase, but that also shows potentially that the supply is fluid, the supply is moving around the country more than what we've seen in the past.
Are amphetamine‑type substances becoming more common in workplace positives and where?
And this is data from companies that you get called into to do tests, is that right?
Yeah, so this is workplace drug testing stats. We go out there and do the drug testing in the workplace.
But these must be the same sort of people. I mean, I've never been drug tested in my life and I don't work in an industry that does do drug testing, so this is forestry and all that sort of stuff, yes? Well, maybe we need to have a chat with the media and see if we can help out with that as well. I don't want to do that, mate. I mean, some of the people in the media, you'd be rocked by what you'd find. Anyway, is this a specific industry? I mean, the types of industries.
It's specific in that we use codes in racial industries that we test for, but traditionally workplace drug testing is for what we call safety-sensitive industries, often blue-collar, but white-collar is testing a lot more as well. So it is a good subset of all industries across the country.
How much of its Monday morning pick-up from weekend activity versus the bloke who's under the influence or the person under the influence during the week?
It's fairly well spread across the board. You do sometimes have your peaks. We see peaks come up to the Christmas season, so there are some seasonal peaks coming into summer and so on. But from a Monday to Friday perspective, it's pretty much across the board.
Okay, good to talk to you as always. Appreciate it very much. Glenn Dobson.
How does New Zealand’s cocaine trend compare with Australia and the United States?
who's into the business of drug detection, drug detection agency. I'm reading about the Levamisol this morning. This has increasingly been taken, the old Levamisol. You into that? You into a bit of Levamisol? So that was developed in the mid-60s as an anti-worming agent. Because why wouldn't you want to take a bit of that? Banned for human use decades ago by the FDA in America because of its serious side effects. But nah, good old New Zealand, like a bit of Alabama salt, eh? Then go to work.
Then you can complain about the cost of living because you haven't got any money left, have you?
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What do the latest workplace drug testing results reveal about cocaine increases?
0:00–0:31
2
How much have positive cocaine tests risen year‑on‑year and why does Canterbury show a 375% spike?
0:31–1:35
3
Are amphetamine‑type substances becoming more common in workplace positives and where?
1:35–2:53
4
How does New Zealand’s cocaine trend compare with Australia and the United States?
2:53–3:36
Speakers
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