Legalising the personal use of dagga in a private place has created a challenge for occupational health and safety in the workplace, according to Joubert Galpin Searle (JGS) labour specialist Rowan Willcock.
JGS, together with Ampath, hosted a panel discussion at the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber’s offices on Tuesday, outlining the basic characteristics of dagga and the physical effects on an individual.
Clinical pathologist Dr JD Deetlefs said while the intoxicating effects of alcohol were well known, the effects of dagga were not as familiar.
But if employees’ cognitive abilities were impaired, they could potentially pose a risk to themselves and others when it came to operating machinery, driving a vehicle or performing other dangerous work.
In regular or heavy users, dagga use could be detected up to 40 days afterwards, but in once-off users the time in which it could be detected was less than seven days.
According to Deetlefs, recreational use of dagga can affect a person’s psychomotor abilities for 12 to 24 hours afterwards.
“Firstly it slows your reaction time and impairs your attention and concentration.
“This obviously then is a huge issue for labour relations.”
With alcohol, Deetlefs said, it was relatively easy to prove that an employee was intoxicated by doing a simple breathalyser test.
But dagga stayed in the body much longer, even after the intoxicating effects had worn off, and there was no reliable test to determine the person’s state of intoxication.
Added to that, the external physiological effects differed from person to person, he said.
“The only test available for accredited laboratories in South Africa, as things stand now, is the urine test. We cannot test blood and saliva yet.
“But what a lot of people don’t know is that we can only do clinical samples.
“So an employer can’t just send us something and ask us to check if there is dagga in that sample,” Deetlefs said.
“Basically when we have a positive test, it means that patient has been exposed to cannabis [dagga] and, in particular, to tetrahydrocannabinol [THC].
“I cannot tell you when exposure has happened, and I cannot tell you how much that patient has taken in.”
Willcock said it would therefore seem clear that dagga should be regulated in the same manner as alcohol in the workplace, and a zero-tolerance policy should be applied.
But the Employment Equity Act stipulates that an employer cannot compel an employee to undergo medical testing – and even if an employee does agree, it can be challenged later.
“We need to get the communication channels going with our employees,” he said.
“You need to say that yes, the Constitutional Court has made its decision, but in our environment we are going to look very closely at employees who report for work under the influence of anything – be it alcohol, drugs or medication.
“Until we can get some clarity on the testing, let’s start communicating with our employees.
“Use a deterrent communication campaign with your employees until we can come up with revised policies to cater for this issue.”