The state that leads on opioids has no rule against turning up high

Meth and its chemical cousins now turn up in six of every 10 positive workplace drug tests in Australia.

The Drug Detection Agency, Australasia's largest workplace drug-testing provider, released its final-quarter figures for 2025/26 on Thursday.

Amphetamine-type stimulants, including methamphetamine, made up 60 per cent of all positive tests — up 17.9 per cent on the year, across transport, construction and manufacturing.

Cannabis was present in 39 per cent, opioids in 11.6 per cent, cocaine in 8 per cent.

“Methamphetamine is an incredibly dangerous drug,” agency head Glenn Dobson said.

“It's incredibly negative in the community, but when it gets into the workplace, it creates some very real safety issues.”

Read the figure carefully.

The 60 per cent is a share of positive tests, not of the workforce.

The overall detection rate held at 3 per cent, broadly unchanged on previous quarters.

What has shifted is what's turning up inside those positives.

Dobson put the stake in plain numbers: “That's three in every 100 in a workplace — that could be three bus drivers, three truck drivers, three construction workers.”

Western Australia is the outlier at 88.6 per cent, though the four other mainland states are all pushing 50 per cent or above.

Victoria's own standout is opioids — the highest detections of any state, even as they fell 36 per cent nationally over the year.

Opioid use by a bus driver was a major factor in the deaths of 10 wedding guests near Greta in the NSW Hunter Valley in 2023.

Brett Andrew Button was jailed for 32 years with a 24-year non-parole period.

His employer, Linq Buslines, and two directors pleaded guilty in March to breaching heavy vehicle law.

The regulator alleged the company failed to ensure it had adequate policies to stop drivers operating while affected by substances.

They are due to be sentenced next month.

That is the exact gap a Victorian parliamentary inquiry told this state to close.

It reported in August 2024 that the testing regime detects presence, not impairment, and that Victoria's rules are outdated and inconsistent.

It asked WorkSafe for a compliance code — an enforceable standard.

The government took 15 months to answer, then declined.

Its reasoning, tabled last November: a compliance code explains how to comply with a specific duty, and “there is no specific duty relating to AOD use or workplace drug testing.”

Guidance would do instead.

Non-statutory, unenforceable guidance.

So nothing binds.

Testing stays neither required nor prohibited, employers write their own rules or write none, and the only national numbers anyone has come from a company that sells the tests.

Meth is the new normal on work sites, and the state's answer is a pamphlet.