Alcohol- and drug testing in the workplace is a complex issue. There is nolegislation in this area, which means that practice from the labour court is ofgreat importance. The employer and the employee usually have differentinterests regarding alcohol- and drug tests and initially it is a conflict ofinterests. A common interest of the employer is to prevent accidents in theworkplace. The employees’ interest is to protect the personal integrity. Bybeing exposed to alcohol and drug tests, the employee may feel offended as itmay be considered an infringement of personal integrity. The labour courttherefore strikes a balance of interests between the competing interests.

Alcohol- and drug tests can be regulated in collective agreements or in theindividual employment contract. If there is no such regulation, the employermay still have the right to introduce alcohol- and drug testing as a result of“Arbetsledningsrätten”, which is a general legal principle in Swedish law.The consequences if an employee refuses to participate in an alcohol- anddrug test or receives a positive test result can be serious. For example, theemployee can be terminated from the employment. To ensure that thesampling process is performed correctly, there are guidelines from variousauthorities and organizations as well as European guidelines. It happens thattest results are false positive but also false negative and to avoid this, thechain of custody is an important component.