Pot Invades Offices, Plants

(FIFTH OF TEN ARTICLES) I iDistributed by Copley News Service) The three girls in miniskirted summery dressed has finished lunches in an historie graveyard in downtown Manhattan and were sharing a cigarette. It was their second, and its brownish paper and odor identified it as a "joint" - or marijuana. The girls Sandy, Anne, and Hilda, h a r d 1 y tried to hide what they were doing. If anyone paid particular attention to them, it was more because of the abbreviated skirts than the smoking. They were relaxed and willing to talk. Asked why they were smoking marijuana, Hilda said, "We're not the only ones. Look around. It's part of the scène. It's the times. As long as nobody gets too high, and it doesn't bother anybody else, who cares? The pólice let it go." But why do it? "We've got these stupid jobs, clerical jobs in a couple of brokerages," Anne said. "We either work our fooi heads off, nights and Saturdays included, when they're busy, or they talk about laying off girls - us - because things are slack and there's too little work. We've had it." "What we do is come cut here to relax," Hilda added. "Two or three joints and we feel good. We don't care if it might be our last week on the job. We don't care if the work is stupid, we can stand it then. When we go back, it wears off after a while and we go down again, but we've had it. We've been up. The three girls are typical of thousands of workers in New York City who use marijuana, amphetamines, barbiturates, or harder drugs during the workday, or on evenings and weekends. The number can only be guessed at; there are no good statistics. But there is no question at all that drug use in business and industry is increasing in New York and nationwide. The New York Telephone Company recently estimated that 6 per cent of its work forcé may be using some kind of drug. A Manhattan bank said that it usually expects two out of 50 in a training group to be "hooked" on drugs. TnpTÖDlëïnisnörönëin New York City alone, although studies have indicated that, on the East Coast, it is most serious here and in Washington. Business and industry can't hope to avoid being affécted by problems deepening throughout the rest of society, John E. Ingersoll, director of the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, told members of the National Association of Manufacturers recently. He warns that employers must expect added costs in the multimillions of dollars from reduced production efficiency, poor morale, rising absenteeism (the national rate is higher now, although it usually drops in economie times like these), more thefts and pilferage, higher insurance rates and the need for tighter security programs and campaigns against drug abuse. The U.S. Public Health Service's narcotics and drug abuse división in Washington says it has "an impression" that drug use is increasing steadily i n factories .and offices nationally. Reports from all parts of the country bear this out: A national store chain based in the Midwest is "worried" about drug users, particularly those addicted to heroin o r "hard drugs," which they cannot afford on store pay. In Milwaukee, employers agreed that there is a noticeable increase in drug use among employés, but most called it more of a potential problem than a present one. International Harv ester, with 20 p 1 a n t s scattered across the country, finds drug use more of a problem now than five years ago - but probably no more of a problem in 1970 than in 1969. The company has an active antidrug program and has tightened security. Employers on the West Coast have problems but generally agree that they aren't "rampant" yet. Drug use has always been present in some parts of the entertainment industry. In the Los Angeles área pólice say that the problem has spread throughout the city and its other job fields - but not to a "critical" point. Alcoholism is still a much greater worry. Possibly because of ïïs proximity to the Mexican border, San Diego, Calif., is list? ed by organized labor as a West Coast city with a relatively large drug-use problem. And California auto plants admit "difficulties" because of drug use. Nationally, according to Leo Perlis of the AFL-CIO Community Services Department, drug use is still "minimal" among union members. I But it is enough of a potential I problem that it would be I shortsighted, he says, for I labor and employers not to I plan for its prevention and I treatment. ! Perlis, who has been I ing at union meetings to focus I attention on the drug prob-.l lem, checked with AFL-CIO I representatives in 20 cities I earlier this year and found: i The drug-in-business problem is "concentrated ïargelvd í among unionists on East or I I West coasts, notably in cities like New York and San Diego." It is found most frequently in the service trades, stores and offices, and to a lesser extent in garment, meatpacking and auto industries. Most users are under 20. A large percentage are blacks, Mexican-Americans or Puerto Ricans, newly employed and mostly in lowpay jobs. For now, alcoholism is considered a much bigger problem nationally than drugs. It afflicts an estimated 5.3 per cent of the millions in the work forcé, many times the number believed to be "on" drugs. The concern about drug abuse is more over its startling - and rapid - increase. The problem first began to appear in plants and in offices about five years ago. Many employers expect a 100 per cent increase in drug cases this year over 1969. Caröl Kurtis, author of a New York City Chamber of Commerce report on "Drug Abuse as a Business Problem" warns that businesses soon will be facing the "same predicament campuses are facing over drug use." (Tomorrow: What Can the Community Do?) ...