The driver was smoking a marijuana joint while traveling down U.S. Route 1 in Maryland when his tandem dump truck struck a bridge abutment, flipped end over end, and landed in a river. Fortunately, the driver was not injured. The $51,000 truck, however, was a total loss.

That drug-related accident in 1982, says Harold C. Green, president of Chamberlain Contractors, Inc., prompted him to adopt a comprehensive safety program at his Laurel, Md., paving company and, in 1987, a drug-testing and employee-assistance program.

But Green’s 60-employee company is not typical of small firms when it comes to drug-prevention programs.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 3 percent of small businesses have drug-testing programs, and only 12 percent have a formal policy on drug use.

In contrast, among larger companies - those with 250 or more employees - 46 percent of employers test their workers, and 74 percent have formal anti-drug policies.

The businesses that employ the majority of U.S. workers - the small and medium-sized firms - for the most part have been standing on the sidelines in the war on drugs, either because they lack the resources or the knowledge to fight the problem or because they don’t believe there is a drug problem among their workers.

The statistics, though, suggest there is a problem. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, 74 percent of the 11.7 million drug users in the country are employed either full time or part time. In addition, figures indicate, as many as 23 percent them use illegal drugs on the job.

Drug users with jobs can be found in every profession, from law firms to construction companies, according to the NIDA’s. National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. (See the chart on Page 55.)

The cost to business of such drug use, according to estimates by various drug-prevention organizations, is $75 billion to $100 billion each year in lost productivity and higher health-care and workers’ compensation costs. Also, employee drug users have higher absentee and tardiness rates than nonusers.

To combat the pervasiveness of the problem, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) have re-energized their three-year-old National DRUGS DON’T WORK Partnership campaign. A major goal is to involve small companies to a greater degree in the war on drugs.

The idea, says William J. Kaufmann, president of the partnership, is to raise the level of awareness of drug abuse among workers in small companies.

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, formed in 1986, is a coalition of volunteers from the communications industry that has donated time and talent in a public-service campaign against drug abuse. CADCA, an organization of activists in 3,800 communities, and the DRUGS DON’T WORK partnership were established by then - President Bush’s Drug Advisory Council to provide high-level leadership to private-sector anti-drug efforts.

The DRUGS DON’T WORK program can provide business with low-cost services and products to set up drug-free-workplace programs, such as a how-to manual, a model drug-testing program and information on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s drug-testing requirements. Programs in 26 states are affiliated with the DRUGS DON’T WORK initiative, with many run by state and local chambers of commerce.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, through a nonprofit affiliate, the Center for Workforce Preparation, is supporting the national effort. The center is serving as a clearinghouse for information on state and local chambers’ drug-free-workplace programs and is urging employers to pledge that they will strive for a drug-free workplace.

A DRUGS DON’T WORK campaign to receive written pledges from 80,000 businesses by the end of 1997 kicks off in February. (See the pledge card.)

Establishing a drug-free-workplace program is the quickest and most effective way for businesses to have an impact on the country’s drug problem, Kaufmann says. But such programs also have a positive effect on a company’s bottom line, he notes.

Chamberlain Contractors’ green says he has seen “a substantial reduction in insurance costs from what they would have been if I hadn’t put the [drug] program in place.” His premiums for workers’ compensation and general liability insurance, including auto insurance, dropped to $132,000 last year from $252,000 in 1987, the year he instituted the drug program.

Alabama, Florida, and Georgia have laws that provide companies that establish drug-free-workplace programs with a 5 percent discount on workers’ comp premiums. Among other states considering such measures are Arizona, New Jersey, North Carolina and Washington.

And drug-free-workplace program don’t just save employers money - they can save people’s lives, says Mark Goodson, president of Goodson Electric, an electrical contractor in Palmetto, Fla.

Because of the drug program is company set up with the help of the Manatee County Chamber of Commerce, “we were able to intervene in a young man’s life, to help him,” says Goodson referring to an employee who was having family and job problems related to drug use. “I had a good man, and I saved a good employee.”