The percentage of public sector employees abusing drugs in Egypt has dropped from 8 percent in 2019 to 1 percent over the first week of the Anti-Drug Law going into effect, which allows the dismissal of employees who test positive for drugs.
Law No. 73 for 2021 was enforced in December after the end of a six-month grace period given to employees to confidentially report their addiction and receive free of charge treatment.
The law was ratified by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in June after many road and train accidents were believed to be largely caused by mistakes related to drivers’ drug abuse.
Since 2019, authorities have been carrying out random drug tests for employees as well as drivers, including school bus drivers, as part of the state’s efforts to fight drug abuse.
In March 2021, 20 people were killed when two trains collided in Upper Egypt. The Public Prosecution then revealed that one of the two trains’ drivers’ assistants tested positive for drugs.
Over the first week of implementing the law, 25 out of 2,877 employees in the state’s administrative apparatus tested positive for drug abuse, Egypt’s Fund for Drug Control and Treatment of Addiction (FDCTA) said in a statement on Sunday.
Over the past three years, around 500,000 employees in the apparatus underwent drug tests, the FDCTA said, noting that the percentage of drug abuse has dropped from 8 percent in 2019 to 1.7 percent in 2021 then to 1 percent over the first week of implementing the law.
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