Policy and Tolerance towards Substance Use and Abuse in Malaysian Organisations

Abstract

Since 1983, the Malaysian government has treated its drug problem as a security issue. From the legal aspect, it has four Acts that deal with issues on drug possession, use, abuse, manufacturing, trafficking, and distribution of illegal substances. Individuals who traffic drugs would be served a death sentence and those who use drugs would be subjected to mandatory treatment and rehabilitation in governmental rehabilitation centres. With the current legal scenario, the likely assumption is that there is acceptable organizational tolerance towards drug use and abuse at the workplace. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore the types of tolerances that organisations have towards different types of drug use at the workplace. In addition, the study also identified guidelines and provisions that organisations have towards its employees who use drugs and their wouldingness to submit their employees to either a mandatory or private drug treatment or rehabilitation. These were then compared with different categories of employees, and special focus given to employees categorised as white collar, valued, high performing, and productive. Moreover, this article also discussed possible biases HR practices in this context, that aim to retain valued employees for the purpose of maintaining organisational competitiveness and dismiss those who are not considered as contributing to the achievement of organisational objectives.