How Have Drug And Alcohol Restrictions Changed in 20 Years?

Corporate and federal drug and alcohol policies have been changing in the last 20 years, and not without reason.

This article will discuss what led to stronger drug and alcohol policies in the United States and how they have changed across states in the last twenty years.

The Drug and Alcohol Abuse Statistics

There is a negative trend regarding drug and alcohol use in the United States: recently, the number of deaths associated with drug and alcohol abuse has risen drastically. According to statistics, there was a 23% increase in deaths from excessive alcohol use between 2018 and 2022.

What is more shocking is that 60% of people who self-reported substance abuse are employed. Such trends will cost the economy top dollar in the coming years. No wonder the landscape of anti-drug and alcohol policies at the corporate and governmental levels has increased.

How to measure drug and alcohol policies

Introducing new restrictive measures is always a tough game involving many players on different sides of the legal playground. On the one hand, state and corporate regulators require stricter measures. On the other hand, there are businesses providing beverage products and consumer rights organizations.

To establish how restrictive specific policies are, a group of US scientists, with Jason G. Blanchette as the head of the research, measured each of 29 US policies by its efficacy and degree of implementation and introduced the state-specific Alcohol Policy Scale (APS).

They used the APS score to establish how restrictive and effective different US states were in battling drug and alcohol misuse.

The results of their assessment were shocking.

Policy restrictiveness through states

In their efforts to control substance misuse, most states scored 25.6 to 67.9 on a theoretical scale of 0 to 100.

Moreover, from 1999 to 2018, the number and restrictiveness of policies grew in most states except for 5. To be precise, the medium APS score grew from a median of 39.1 in 1999 to a median of 43.5 in 2018. Only six states had decreased APS scores.

So, what does this policy landscape mean for drug and alcohol screening companies?

If your company helps other businesses set their inner drug and alcohol policies with federal requirements, this change in the policy landscape means one thing: with an average APS score of 43.5, there is plenty of space for more regulations to come in the future and more space for services to be offered.

Yet, to be productive in this business, one must keep their tools handy.

How can AI help with drug and alcohol compliance?

eNest Technologies has developed a customizable AI solution that helps automate a lot of manual work when checking a company's drug and alcohol policies. Our solution is able to parse through documentation instead of a dedicated specialist.

By reading the text, the AI tool evaluates whether it contains the needed policies, whether they are strong, and whether they are in accordance with the current legislation.

If something inside the checked documents is not right, the tool sends automated alerts. Not to skip them, it also forms a complete action plan at the end of the check-up.

How to start with AI?

If you decide to start an AI tool for compliance audits, you have to train the AI model on the best compliance practices you’ve developed as a drug screening company. This is similar to training one of your employees. Once the training is done, you can send the model to your clients and check their documents on-site.

Interested in an AI solution to streamline compliance audits?

Contact eNest for a free consultation and advice! We shall set a one-on-one meeting with one of our specialists. During the meeting, you'll discuss your business case and get a cost and timeline estimate for the future project! Book a call now!

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