Clauses · FAR · Small business, labor and socioeconomic
FAR 52.223-6 Drug-Free Workplace — 52.223-6 now reads "[Reserved]"; the live clause is FAR 52.226-7, Drug-Free Workplace
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
Neither the retired 52.223-6 nor the live 52.226-7 contains a subcontract-insertion paragraph — 52.226-7 runs (a) definitions, (b) requirements for a non-individual contractor, (c) the one-sentence requirement on an individual, (d) remedies — and 26.506 addresses only solicitations and contracts. Primes flow it down as a policy mirror: they made a drug-free-workplace commitment to the Government and want the same commitment from the supply base. On a DoD subcontract the nearest real obligation is a different clause, DFARS 252.226-7003, Drug-Free Work Force (AUG 2024, prescribed at DFARS 226.570-2), which also carries no flow-down paragraph.
A clause can reach your subcontract without a mandate. Once it is in your document, it is a contract term all the same. The missing mandate is a fact about the regulation. It is not a ruling on your order.
Checked against acquisition.gov on 2026-08-05 · edition [Reserved] since 2024-05-22 (FAC 2024-05). Live text: FAR 52.226-7 (MAY 2024). The corpus cites the retired "MAY 2001" designation. · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗
What it makes you produce
3 items for your checklist, slowest first.
A program you have to be running
You are either running it or you are not, and what the prime asks for is the date it started.
An ongoing drug-free awareness program covering the dangers, your policy, the counseling, rehabilitation and assistance available, and the penalties
FAR 52.226-7(b)(2)
Something you write
Days to weeks, and nobody outside your company has to agree to it.
A written statement to employees, published within 30 days of award, that unlawful manufacture, distribution, dispensing, possession or use of a controlled substance is prohibited in your workplace, and what will follow where it is broken
FAR 52.226-7(b)(1)
Something you fill in and send back
Hours, once you know which one is missing.
- FAR 52.226-7(b)(5)
Notice to the buyer within 10 days, naming the employee and the conviction
Owed when you receive notice that an employee working on the contract was convicted of a criminal drug statute violation in the workplace
When it is used
Read the live clause, 52.226-7, prescribed at FAR 26.506 ('Except as provided in 26.501, insert the clause at 52.226-7 in solicitations and contracts'). FAR 26.501 carves out, among others: contracts at or below the simplified acquisition threshold ($350k) — except that the subpart applies to ALL contracts of any value awarded to an individual; acquisition of commercial products and commercial services (Part 12); and contracts performed outside the United States and its outlying areas, or any part of a contract performed outside those areas. So for a small sub the clause is live only on a noncommercial subcontract above $350k performed in the US — or on any subcontract at any value if the contractor is a natural person.
Read closely
This number reads reserved, and the rows are deliberately NOT recorded as a number with nothing behind it. FAC 2024-05 moved subpart 23.5 to 26.5 and renumbered the clause to FAR 52.226-7 on 2024-05-22, so a document naming 52.223-6 is naming an empty slot — a fact about the document, and one you can hand back to whoever wrote it. But the successor has no separate entry here and is named by none of the 43 documents this base is built from, while this number is named by six of them: recording the row as an empty number would take the drug-free workplace obligation out of the product for everyone whose paperwork still cites the old number. So every row is cited to the live clause instead. That is the rule this entry stands on — an empty number is safe to call empty where the successor is already covered, and unsafe where it is not. Every employee on the contract gets a copy of the statement (b)(3) and is told in writing that abiding by it is a condition of employment and that a workplace drug conviction has to be reported within five days (b)(4); personnel action or a rehabilitation program follows within 30 days of a conviction notice (b)(6). Where the contractor is an individual, paragraph (c) is one sentence and there is no program at all. On a defense order the nearer obligation is DFARS 252.226-7003.
The 3 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.223-6 ([Reserved]), FAR 52.226-7, FAR 26.501, 26.505 and 26.506, FAR Subpart 23.5, DFARS 252.226-7003; FAC 2024-05 / FAR Case 2022-006, 89 FR 30248 (2024-04-22), effective 2024-05-22 (verified 2026-08-05)
This is research, not legal advice. It states what the regulation says about this clause and cites the paragraph behind it. It does not rule on your order, and it does not rule on whether a prime's markings are correct.