POLICY AND TOLERANCE TOWARDS SUBSTANCE USE AND ABUSE IN MALAYSIAN ORGANISATIONS

Since 1983, the Malaysian government has treated its drug problem as a security issue. From the legal aspect, it has four Acts that deal zvith issues on drug possession, use, abuse, manufacturing, trafficking, and distribution of illegal substances. Individuals zvho traffic drugs zvould be served a death sentence and those zvho use drugs zvould be subjected to mandatory treatment and rehabilitation in governmental rehabilitation centres. With the current legal scenario, the likely assumption is that there is acceptable organisational tolerance tozvards drug use and abuse at the zvorkplace. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore the types of tolerances that organisations have tozvards different types of drug use at the zvorkplace. In addition, the study also identified guidelines and provisions that organisations have tozvards its employees zvho use drugs and their zvouldingness to submit their employees to either a mandatory or private drug treatment or rehabilitation. These zvere then compared zvith different categories of employees, and special focus given to employees categorised as zvhite 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 zvho are not considered as contributing to the achievement of organisational objectives.