Salvia: A Crazy Ass Drug You Should Know about Reasonable Suspicion Training

Most DOT Supervisor Training on Drug and Alcohol education for reasonable suspicion does not mention anything about a drug called Salvia. Salvia is a herb that is almost always smoked. It produces radical and frightening distortions of reality that include mania and visual and auditory hallucinations. When used, the effects occur within 30-60 seconds. User may begin laughing, stumbling, fall down, staring, swiping at the air with their arms, and come down off the high within an hour. There are bad trips with this drug. It is an unpredictable substance of abuse, and don't believe a damn thing anyone tells you about this drug being harmless. If you are a supervisor on the job and have an employee who uses Salvia, your employee will not hold back. They will appear totally spaced out and tell you what they area seeing in the way of bright lights and color, having no control over body muscles. You may see your employee on the ground swirling around, acting depressed, bewildered, shocked, and behaving in extremely odd ways. You will know they are on drugs instantly. Salvia is bought online. It is not illegal, but any employee using it can kiss productivity good bye. To see a YouTube Video of a bad Salvia experience, see below: Imagine this employee operating your fork lift. Yes, drug testing and employee assistance programing save lives.

Hey, Where Are All the Wierd Drugs in the Workplace--Like Bromo Dragon Fly or Devil's Breath?

When you are instructed in reasonable suspicion training, do not get caught up in all the information and hype about what are the worst drugs in the workplace. Drugs like Salvia, Bath Salts, Spice/K2, Ketamine, Devil's Breath, Benzo Fury, Dipt, Bromo Dragon Fly, etc. etc. You can visit YouTube to learn about these substances, but you are never, ever going to see them in the workplace. You will however see absenteeism. That you can document. And that you can refer for! Drug abuse signs and symptoms? Forget it, you ain't going to see them. But if your organization has a decent EAP not run by a managed care company (which by the way totally screwed up the EAP field and decimated it by 50% of the programs in 20 years, and I maintain that mass shootings are a direct result with the shooters not referred for help but were known troubled employees in companies that had no EAP or a terrible one-- i.e., the Orlando Shooter should have been referred to an EAP by the employer for outrageous behavior) then you will get these weird drug users into treatment. DOT Supervisors used to be told to avoid looking for drug abuse signs and symptoms, and tons of addicts were referred to treatment because of performance issues. Stick to this model and enjoy the drug and alcohol training in the signs and symptoms education. It's entertaining, but that is about it.  The the field went bonkers, and we started telling supervisors to look for signs and symptoms. It hasn't worked, as predicted but the real pros in this field. But since we are here, and now teaching signs and symptoms, remember this: Do not be fooled into thinking that if you do not see signs and symptoms of drug abuse in the workplace that they are not there.

DOT Supervisors Should Understand Early Stages of Alcoholism

Don't get me wrong. This is has nothing to do with you diagnosing employees. It has to do with dispelling myths and misconceptions that keep you as a DOT Supervisor following reasonable suspicion training, from ignoring  your responsibilities for intervening on the job with an employee who demonstrates a problem. So, start with yourself. It's always best and understand the following If you drink, know the early signs of alcoholism. You may spot symptoms that allow you to be better prepared to self-diagnose the illness if it becomes necessary. Once social drinking begins, neurological and behavioral signs and symptoms begin to emerge in susceptible persons. These may include tolerance, often misperceived as a positive ability to drink more “efficiently” or in greater amounts than peers without feeling alcohol’s effects. You may notice fewer adverse consequences the next morning after heavy drinking and increasingly look forward to the next opportunity to drink. You may seek out peers who drink with the same capacity as yourself. Memory loss while drinking (blackouts) may occur. You may see alcohol as a positive way to feel stimulated, and may experience boredom if unable to drink in the evening. Alcoholism is not an equal-opportunity illness. Research shows that a family history of addictive disease places one at higher risk for it. There is a myth that self-referral never happens, and that some horrible incident must force an alcoholic into treatment. Not true. A screening with a professional counselor takes only minutes, and your score and concern over the above symptoms may lead you to accept help early to avoid such an incident.

Don't Get "Tripped Up" as a DOT Supervisor

Someday you are going to confront an employee who has alcohol on his or her breath. You will use this as evidence that the employee may be under the influence. No problem, until the employee tells you rather convincingly, that he or she is entering an alcoholism treatment program today, and the treatment program told the employee not to stop drinking because the withdrawal will make it more difficult for them to do a proper detox. Guess what. This is exactly what treatment programs do. And it is perfectly medically valid. So you may say, whew, wipe your brow, and decide that there is no need to make a big stink out of the alcohol on the employee’s breath. There is only one catch. A treatment program would never say to continue going to work drinking, and even if it did, it makes no difference. Send the employee to testing. Never assume an alcohol or drug problem is properly treated simply because the employee reports having quit is entering treatment. There is a difference between self-imposed abstinence and understanding how to manage addictive disease properly using an applied daily program of recovery recommended by addiction specialists. DOT Supervisor Training often comes up short on explaining these small nuances, but now you know! And it is difficult to include every small nuance in reasonable suspicion training, but this is one I thought you might find interesting

Reasonable Suspicion Training: How DOT Supervisors Enable--Even If They Drug/Alcohol Experts

If you don't think you are capable of enabling an employee who has a drug and alcohol problem, think again. Reasonable suspicion training often includes, and it must include all the signs, symptoms, effects, impact, dangers, etc. of drug and alcohol use. However, there is no requirement for supervisors to understand how all of this is undermined by enabling, so here is the list of enabling behaviors you are vulnerable to:

• Ignoring job performance problems of the DOT employee, hoping they will go away, or are temporary.(This is an easy one to do on a busy and harried day.)
• Threatening disciplinary action without following through on such threats. (It's just so much trouble, and maybe things will turnaround.)
• Avoiding confrontation of employees who are considered friends. (Woops. The employee will say you are pot calling the kettle black.)
• Avoiding confrontation because you are a heavy drinker like the employee needing referral. (Your drinking problem is worse!) The honest answer to this problem is to ignore your drinking issues for the time being, and do your job. Yes, that is best decision for now.
• Accepting excuses for ongoing job performance problems.
• Accepting employee’s request to avoid use of the EAP in favor of other helping options.
• Ignoring the return of job performance problems after an EAP referral until they reach a intolerable level.
• Not acting to arrange a reasonable suspicion breath test when the odor of alcohol exists—accepting explanations (medicine, etc.) for it.
• Protecting the employee from personnel actions while increasing personal involvement to assist the employee.