It was when Reagan declared the ‘War on Drugs’ in a radio broadcast in October 1982 that he referred to the use of drugs as an epidemic sweeping the nation. Pointing out that the use of drugs in general had an awful effect on the family unit. Of course – the beginning of this war was meant as just a part of a much larger move in government against crime in general. During this time, research was conducted into Organized Crime organizations, and what was the largest contributor to the income of the ‘mob’. Research concluded that the largest source of income for organized crime was drug trafficking. The one large positive of this research was the realization that all the attempts to stem the flow of drugs into the US was highly inefficient and sadly mostly ineffective, that the focus of the government up until that point had been a large waste of time and energy.

Because efforts to reduce the amount of drugs were proving so unsuccessful someone came up with the plan to actually reduce the desire and demand for the drugs. The easiest way to do this they figured was in the workplace. The belief was that by having certain ‘critical positions’ within a company become positions that drug testing was mandatory for employment, would help to staunch the demand for drugs as people would now understand that they would be watched for this behavior. It is amusing to note that this idea came forth originally from a research study into organized crime income methods, than from any sort of workplace safety documents.