The City Anti-Drug Abuse Council (Cadac) will conduct a series of workshops as part of the implementing rules and regulations for the mandatory drug testing ordinance on all business establishments with more than 10 workers.“This is to follow the mandate in providing treatment and rehabilitation to the employees if ever we find one because we consider them as a person with substance use disorder,” Cadac program director Ronaldo Rivera told TIMES.
As mandated in the local law, service-oriented establishments are mandated to conduct random drug tests this year as a requirement for the renewal of their business permits for the year 2020. Service and product-oriented establishments are mandated to conduct in 2020 as a pre-requisite for the renewal in 2021, and product-oriented establishments are mandated to conduct in 2021 as a pre-requisite for renewal in 2022.
All establishments shall conduct the random drug testing every three years.
According to Rivera, they could not simultaneously implement the conduct random drug testing in all establishments due to the lack of resources. “We have to give enough them enough time to prepare and we also lack human resource,” he said.
The components on the implementation of the ordinance includes advocacy, education, and training; drug testing program for officers and employees; treatment, rehabilitation, and referral; and monitoring and evaluation.
Other requirements also include orientation and training of human resource managers and a three-year plan on advocacy, education, and training which will be annually evaluated by CADAC.
The accredited drug free workplace assessment team that could provide training for the establishments include University of Mindanao, Ateneo de Davao University, University of the Immaculate Conception, and Holy Cross College of Davao.
Training schedule begins on April 10-11, 2019.
