O-41 Awareness of amendments to the Jamaican Dangerous Drug Act (2015) and substance use:The role of workplace subsstnce use policy.
Author(s):
T Moore, C Cunningham-Myrie, U Atkinson, KP Theall
Year of Presentation:
2023
Objective: To examine whether workplace substance use policy moderates the association between awareness of the amended Dangerous Drug Act (DDA) 2015 and substance use among a sample of Jamaican adults.
Methods: Secondary analysis was conducted on The Jamaican National Drug Use Prevalence Survey, a cross-sectional nationally representative survey completed in 2016. The survey was administered to 4623 individuals aged 12-65 years in Jamaica. Our total analytic sample size was 2,446. Multivariate logistic regressions were used to examine the role of workplace substance use policy in the association between awareness of DDA and substance use.
Results: Factors positively associated with marijuana use in the past 12 months included Rastafarian religion (aOR =5.04, 95% CI 1.70 - 15.00) compared to Christian religion; married (aOR 0.58, 95%CI 0.41 -0.82) compared to single; and female (aOR 0.52, 95%CI 0.35 - 0.77) compared to males. Neither workplace policy nor DDA awareness were significantly associated with marijuana use, although employed individuals with a workplace policy and those aware of the DDA were less likely to use marijuana. Work place policy was not found to moderate the association between DDA awareness and marijuana use (aOR for twoway interaction = 1.02 95%CI 0.36 - 2.88, p=0.97).
Conclusion: Workplace substance use policies represent an important opportunity to promote safe environments and encourage healthy employee behavior. However, marijuana decriminalization may have further implications for employers. Investigation on the effect of different types of work place substance use policies is also needed.