Policy Description
Alcohol and tobacco policy addresses the ban on drugs in the workplace. The policy works to safeguard millions of employees, and their managers, against the associated harmful effects. The policy aims to highlight the negative impact on health and safety in businesses.
The alcohol and tobacco policy has been selected due to the challenges that make it a failure in the workplace. The issues associated with quality control inherently make alcohol and tobacco consumption legal, resulting in divergences in both quality and potency. Moreover, Glantz and Bareham (2018) show that criminalizing alcohol and tobacco leads to the creation of a market that offers an even more dangerous alternative. While the intent of the Eighteenth Amendment was to mitigate poor health resulting from drug use and the associated effects, prohibiting alcohol and tobacco use equals increasing portholes for black markets.
Advantages of the Policy
- Promotes a good culture of health.
- Improves productivity and profitability.
- Ensures the health, safety, and welfare of employees.
- Helps minimize staff turnover and illnesses.
- Encourages individuals to take action to correct potential issues they encounter (Ranabhat et al. 2019).
- Gives employees a clear guideline of what they can or cannot do.
- Managers get clear guidance about the procedures to follow.
How The Policy Influences Quality of Care
- It highlights the risk factors for different health diseases.
- It educates on the vulnerability of drug use (Pierce et al., 2018).
- Ensures the health, safety, and welfare of employees.
- Helps minimize staff turnover and illnesses.
- Encourages individuals to take action to correct potential health issues (Levy et al., 2018).
References
Glantz, S. A., Bareham, D. W. (2018). E-cigarettes: Use, effects on smoking, risks, and policy implications. Annu. Rev. Public Health 39, 215–235.
Levy, D. T., Tam, J., Kuo, C., Fong, G. T., Chaloupka, F. (2018). Research full report: the impact of implementing tobacco control policies: the 2017 tobacco control policy scorecard. J. Public Health Manage. Pract. 24 (5), 448.
Pierce, J. P., Sargent, J. D., Portnoy, D. B., White, M., Noble, M., Kealey, S., et al. (2018). Association between receptivity to tobacco advertising and progression to tobacco use in youth and young adults in the PATH Study. JAMA Pediat. 172 (5), 444–451.
Ranabhat, C. L., Kim, C.-B., Park, M. B., & Jakovljevic, M. M. (2019). Situation, Impacts, and Future Challenges of Tobacco Control Policies for Youth: An Explorative Systematic Policy Review. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 10.
Sorge, J. T., Young, M., Maloney-Hall, B., Sherk, A., Kent, P., Zhao, J., Stockwell, T.,… Ferguson, B. (April 01, 2020). Estimation of the impacts of substance use on workplace productivity: a hybrid human capital and prevalence-based approach applied to Canada. Canadian Journal of Public Health = Revue Canadienne De Sante Publique, 111, 2, 202-211.