Why is this only now becoming a big problem. It has been going on for many years. Maybe they need to change the rule of bottle to throttle to 18 hrs?
I understand what you are saying but that wont help - in fact it may make it worse given human nature and the nature of addiction. In my industry (oil & gas) best in class operators typically operate a risk - based screening system for those involved in safety - critical operations eg refining, terminalling, offshore ops. I anecdotally hear that this is practiced on a limited basis by a few airlines (can anyone confirm?) and by some on a "for cause" basis (in other words on a crew where one individual is suspected or has been reported the entire FD and Cabin crew are tested without fear of favour). In our industry the unions sometimes support it and sometimes hate it, the employees mostly hate it and the companies dislike doing it but recognize that it saves lives. At the end of the day aggressive risk-based testing (where the frequency is adjusted to the location, the task and the outcomes) is the
only way to cut this down to as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP as we call it). You will never eliminate it except through 100% testing which is is simply not sustainable or desirable.
The programs we have are usually balanced by supportive intervention if the employee pre-emptively seeks help or admits (during a medical for example if markers in blood screens show that he/she has a problem).
Expecting some flak for the above but it seems that we are where we are and the point at where the increasing occurrence / discovery /media attention curve has intersected with the lack of public confidence curve. Time to get real.
See "programme management" in the following:
http://www.ipieca.org/media/2812/dru...6_12_13_lr.pdf