On-the-Job Drug Deals Thriving

Employers: Don’t assume that all of the drug deals are going down in a seedy shack on the wrong side of the tracks. A surprisingly large number are taking place on a loading dock or in a break room near you.

Workplace experts in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere say that, in the past 18 months to two years, they’ve seen increasing concern by employers about illicit drug activity in the workplace. And much of it is fueled by on-the-job drug deals among co-workers.

To be sure, most workplace dealing would hardly resemble a full-fledged drug-running operation. Workday transactions typically involve small amounts of contraband and take place between friends, according to private investigators, employment relations attorneys and other experts.

Still, given the safety and legal implications, experts say drug dealing in the workplace represents an “enormous” problem that, by some measures, is growing.

“Almost every undercover operation that we’ve been involved in, where we started out looking for theft, we also found drug use,” said Ron Farmer, a longtime private investigator whose new Glendale company helps businesses establish a security program.

“And when we found drug use, we almost always also found dealing. I’d say 70% of the time.

“Of the people using drugs in the workplace, almost all, on some level, are dealing drugs, at least to their friends. If you use drugs in the workplace, you also end up buying and selling them there.”

Mark deBernardo, founder and executive director of the Washington-based Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace, quoted figures from the federal Department of Health and Human Services showing that about 75% of those who use illicit drugs are employed.

“And most of them get their drugs from co-workers in or out of the workplace,” he said. “There’s a whole lot of drug dealing going on in the workplace. I know it.”

Dealers Find Captive Audience

In the workplace, dealers find a captive audience, relative seclusion and, in most cases, a less-threatening environment than your average drug-infested street corner.

DeBernardo and others conceded that recently released figures show a marked decline in workplace drug tests that come back positive. During 1999, 4.6% of about 6 million workplace tests performed by New Jersey-based Quest Diagnostics Inc., were reported positive. That’s down from 4.8% in 1998 and 13.6% in 1988.

Still, private investigators and employment attorneys say they’re getting more phone calls from employers who suspect--and ultimately find--that they have a problem.

And the robust economy, experts say, has contributed both to the problem and the solution.

Flush with cash, workers have more disposable income to spend on drugs.

At the same time, employers--concerned about increased theft rates, rising absenteeism and workplace accidents--are spending more of their economy supplied bounty to try to combat the problem, paying as much as $100,000 toward undercover operations.

Daniel Y. Jones, president and chief executive officer of D.Y. Jones & Associates Inc. a private investigations firm in Mission Hills, said about 25% of his caseload involves drug use in the workplace. Five years ago, that would have been about 15% to 20%, and 10 years ago, it would have been about 10%, he said.

“Two years ago, we might get one call every 60 to 90 days regarding investigating drugs in the workplace,” said Jones, former president of the California Assn. of Licensed Investigators, one of the largest private investigator associations in the world.

“Now it’s two a month. In the past two weeks we’ve opened two new cases. That’s an increase for us,” he added. “We’ve seen it creeping up.”

Jones said that depending on what services the employer wants, the fee to ferret out workplace drugs could be $10,000 to $15,000 to install and monitor surveillance cameras, or as much as $100,000 for a lengthy undercover operation.

And while some companies are reluctant to take on such an expense, Jones asserts that in the long run, conquering the theft problem that most often accompanies a drug problem will offset the costs of the covert operation.

“Most companies have tremendous amounts of thefts,” said Jones. Workers “will steal a whole lot more in a year than it costs to investigate. It’s not at all difficult to justify the cost.”

In 1999, Jones’ agency handled about half a dozen cases involving workplace drugs--but none led to arrests.

Jones, who estimates that up to 75% of his business comes from the Valley, said employers often just want to get rid of the employees involved.

“They don’t want to involve the police or be in the newspaper.”

The problem of drugs and drug dealing in the workplace is certainly not new.

In the mid-’90s, 44% of callers to a national cocaine hotline admitted selling drugs to other employees, DeBernardo said.

And he recalled that in the late ‘80s, his nonprofit agency worked with “a large computer company that you would know,” after several employees got into two brawls, including a knife fight, over work space “turf.”

“It was essentially a turf war, over who got to sell to whom,” said DeBernardo. “People got hurt.”

“When you talk about the dealing of drugs in the workplace, what you have is a compromise in the workplace on a totally different level,” DeBernardo added. “You have significant quantities of contraband and cash and in many cases, weapons.”

Employers Work to Fix Problem

Today, experts say they see a few differences from years past--an increased level of gang activity and an increased willingness on the part of employers to spend more to fix the problem.

“What we’ve noticed in the past five years is a lot more gang activity involved in [workplace] drug use,” said Farmer, who was formerly vice president of Northridge-based West Coast Detectives. “The level of gang activity has risen.”

He mentioned a Ventura County entertainment industry company that recently identified “seven or eight different gangs coming onto their property.”

Typically, a gang member is hired by a firm, attracting other gang members and “all kinds of problems: vandalism, threats,” Farmer said.

At larger firms, such problems might come to the attention of the director of security or head of loss prevention.

But smaller firms with under 600 employees--a category that represents a large chunk of the Valley economy--often lack the resources to hire a director of security.

To help fill that void, Farmer has helped launch the Corporate Services Group, which offers consulting services to firms looking to set up, or beef up, their security systems.

Often, a company’s search for solutions will lead to a firm like Glendora-based Krout & Schneider Inc., a 73-year-old private investigations firm.

Lee McClain, president of the company, said he gets calls “all the time” from clients who found “syringes in the bathroom or Baggies in the parking lot.”

When employers call, he and others said, they’re shocked, embarrassed and frustrated. But most of all, they want the matter resolved.

“Employers overall want to rid themselves of any type of substance abuse in the workplace,” McClain said. “But the biggest emphasis is to eliminate the folks who are dealing drugs.

“If you can stop the supply line, you can limit or reduce your problem.”

Valley@Work runs each Tuesday. Karen Robinson-Jacobs can be reached at Karen.Robinson@latimes.com.