A Letter From the Publisher

By Richard B. Thomas

This week's cover story, on drugs in the workplace and efforts to control their use, marks a distinct change of pace for TIME's Economy and Business section. Says Senior Editor Charles Alexander, who supervised the project: "This story is an unusual one for us because it cuts across so many disciplines. We don't normally focus heavily on crime, legal and civil rights issues or social problems in our columns."

Alexander knows whereof he speaks. He has been a member of the Business section since 1978, first as a reporter-researcher and, since 1981, as a staff writer and associate editor. He is the author of cover stories on such varied topics as the budget deficit and People Express Airlines. Two months ago he became Business editor, replacing George M. Taber, who now heads the World section. "It can require a lot of effort to render the subjects of business and economics both understandable and interesting," says Alexander. "But this cover story was not a difficult one to make compelling."

TIME correspondents across the country helped gather the disturbing statistics and personal accounts of drug use in the workplace. In Washington, Correspondents Gisela Bolte and Anne Constable interviewed officials and ex- officials of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Chicago Correspondent Barbara Dolan and New York Reporter Jeanne McDowell talked with employees and employers. "From $100-a-week Wall Street runner to $1 million-a-year chief executive officer," observes McDowell, "no individual was exempt, no group of people too smart, too talented, too educated or too successful to be touched by the problem." Los Angeles-based Correspondent Jonathan Beaty was reporting his third cover story on drug abuse since 1981. He observes that "corporate antidrug programs and proposed mass testing of Government workers amount to a disturbing admission that all attempts to block the supply have failed."

Staff Writer Janice Castro, who wrote this week's cover story, her first for TIME, also went into the field. At a meeting of a self-help group for addicts in New Jersey, she heard shocking stories of degradation and despair. She was especially moved by the plight of several members who were still hospitalized, undergoing detoxification. "They were very worried about returning to their jobs," says Castro. "They knew that there would be drugs there, and they didn't want to fall back into their old habits. But the others reassured them that wherever there were drugs, there were almost certainly groups where they could find help and support. In working on this story, there were few silver linings. That was one of them."