Bosses Can Do More Than ‘Just Say No’

Several months ago, a highly valued mid-management employee requested an audience with the president of his company, headquartered in Orange County. The employee was deeply troubled over the growing incidence of drug use and flagrant drug dealing that was taking place daily in both the company’s office and plant. He said he respected the company’s leadership and integrity but unless something was done about this situation, he was going to seek work elsewhere.

The company president pressed his employee for details, then called the local police for help. He was told there was nothing they could do; the authorities had neither the time nor the manpower to follow up dozens of similar calls they receive each year. They suggested he call Ted Hunter.

Hunter is a former western regional director of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration who retired last year to head up a new company in Tustin called Situation Management Inc. (“I took a whole weekend off” before starting the new job). Most of the situations his company is called in to help manage are related to drugs in the workplace.

“They all want a quick fix,” Hunter said, “but it doesn’t work that way. Education is a slow process that has to grow out of a specific company commitment. It starts with a recognition of the scope of the problem internally, then moves on to the development of a policy designed for that company and the creation of a program to make it work that is legal and effective and recognizes both employer and employee rights. Such a program will certainly involve terms of employment and may or may not include drug testing, searches, treatment or a number of other possible measures.

“The employer has a legal and legitimate interest in everything that goes on in his workplace, and I’m extremely excited about what employers can do to check this epidemic problem. Today, if you employ people, you have a drug problem. It’s as cut and dried as that.

“From my years of experience in this field, I would estimate that--excluding juveniles--95% of the people in drug treatment programs are employees somewhere. So the employer today needs to stop being reactive and start being pro-active in dealing with drug abuse in the workplace.”

To this end, SMI has spent almost a year developing a multimedia program that sells for $5,000, is self-contained, and offers a detailed step-by-step instructional guide for creating an effective corporate drug prevention program. If additional consulting service is required, Hunter is available.

Probably no one in the country is better equipped for this role. Since he had his head bashed in by a drug dealer in his first major bust more than 2 decades ago, Hunter has been on the front lines of the federal government’s war against the producers, processors, dealers and users of illegal drugs. A trophy case in his office displays medals from Singapore, Japan, Ecuador, Cyprus and the Philippines--among others--awarded for his work against international drug trafficking. He has also testified frequently before Congress as a drug expert.

And, he looks the part with a square build, a slightly squashed boxer’s nose, and a strong no-nonsense chin. He’s passionate about this crusade he’s carried on for so many years, but he’s no zealot. There’s a remarkable aura of gentility and intelligence and reason not often achieved in work so one-dimensional. There’s also humor. He admits to finding some difficulty in moving from the public to the private sector. “People in the government service . . . define integrity in a way that the private sector doesn’t worry about as long as it’s making money. That’s new to me. I like to understand the rules. I know them in government. Now I’m learning a new set.”

Hunter’s father was a career petty officer in the Navy, and “I grew up in the world. I spoke Chinese before I spoke English. We were stationed in China when the Japanese invaded before World War II, and we had to be evacuated.” Hunter enlisted in the Navy during the Korean War, then used the GI Bill to attend Cal State San Jose, where he earned degrees in criminal justice and psychology. He spent 3 years as a police officer in San Jose, and another 3 working for the state of California before be applied for the federal law enforcement job.

Ted and Michaline Hunter have been married for 22 years and lived in Placentia since 1981 and in Orange County off and on for almost 2 decades. They have a son who is a freshman at UC Irvine and a daughter in the eighth grade.

If Hunter has a mission in life today, it is to break through the veil of hypocrisy that he feels encourages--or at least allows--the growth of drug abuse in the United States. “We’re schizophrenic and dishonest in our national resolve about drugs,” he said. “The problem is easily defined. The problem is us. We can keep on criticizing the supplier countries, but the real problem is our own insidious demand. If we shut down all the drug-producing countries, we would take up the slack here overnight. These countries send us what we demand. If we want cucumbers and tomatoes instead, they’ll send us those.

“Judging success in this war on drugs by how many people we arrest is also naive and dishonest. The answer is commitment by our own citizens. Once we reach a national resolve that we’ve had enough, we’ll turn it around.”

He sees the roots of present drug use in the Vietnam War period. “That’s when our values really started to break down.

“That war cost us an awful lot. We not only lost our basic values but our system of responsibility started to erode, and we became self-indulgent and winked at drug abuse. There’s an interesting analogy with the Russians in Afghanistan. They’ve had similar problems with an unpopular war. Russia had alcoholism but no significant drug problem until Afghanistan.”

He doesn’t regard the legalization of drugs as a reasonable alternative--”at least not until we’ve tried everything else, and we haven’t done that.”

“Legalization would only come about today out of frustration and defeatism. Besides, it wouldn’t touch the most destructive drug of all, which is alcohol, or the over-the-counter drugs. There are about 25 billion dosages of legitimate drugs manufactured in the United States every year. So my anger is directed toward our loss of values and the resulting breakdown of society.

“To be consistent with the common good, we need to lead responsible lives. Toleration of drug abuse stands in the way of that responsibility, and it starts with parents and moves on to schools and churches. We’ve put too much responsibility on law enforcement to get us out of this mess. It’s an important dimension, but we must not look to the police exclusively for a solution, especially when we haven’t dealt honestly with the problem ourselves.”

He says these things a little wistfully, without any sense in the listener of preaching. But he also clearly believes they are attainable--and that one obvious launching pad is the workplace.

“We’ve dealt for many years,” he says, “with the problem of alcoholism in the workplace, but now (with drugs) a new dimension has been added: a violation of the law. Employees are using and dealing illegal drugs in the workplace in growing numbers because they have a virtual sanctuary there.

“So drug trafficking is proliferating in the workplace at an alarming rate, and nothing has prepared management to deal with it. It’s tough to admit you have a problem with people close to you--and employees are almost like the members of a family. Some managers also perceive drugs in their workplace as reflecting on how well they are performing their jobs--and for that reason deny what is growing more and more obvious. So the problem just gets worse. But I still believe it can and must be successfully attacked.”