Drug Testing is virtually useless.

[The Toecutter]

Interesting article, covering one of the many ways in how our constitutionally protected rights are being eroded and how our taxes and overhead keep increasing...

http://www.oregonherald.com/n/radica...g-testing.html

Drug Testing Does No Good

Recently, an RV manufacturing plant in Goshen, Indiana, made headlines because they had drug tested all 120 of their employees and found that nearly a third of them tested positive for some illicit substance.

What caused the company to drug test all of their employees? Was there a rash of accidents? Had productivity dropped significantly? Were there increasing incidents of absenteeism and illness? Did a supervisor notice any drug use occurring at the plant, or notice an employee obviously under the influence of drugs?

No. The only reason the plant spent the time, effort, and money to test their employees was due to a police tip that there was a drug problem at the plant. In other words, there was no reason for the company to believe they had a drug problem.

You would think that running a manufacturing plant with one third of your employees working under the influence would lead to some obvious problems. You'd be right. The problem is that a positive drug test does not indicate that a person is under the influence of drugs. It only indicates that a person has done drugs in the past.

The methods of drug testing have evolved over the past decade. Once, businesses, schools, and government could only test a person's urine. These tests were so easily defeated that the tests only detect whether you're too dumb to fool the test. But new methods of testing the blood, saliva, and hair have made fooling a drug test much harder.

With the urine test, evidence of past use of cocaine, amphetamines, and other hard drugs can be detected for 72 hours after use. Thus, a worker testing positive for these drugs could have ingested these substances on a Friday evening and be completely sober for work on Monday. Likewise, a person seeking a new job need only abstain from these substances for three days.

Ironically, the one drug with the lowest potential for abuse and harm, marijuana, remains detectable in a person's urine for 30 to 45 days. It is odd to consider that for two employees passing a urine test, one may have been abstaining from smoking pot last month while the other may have been smoking crack all of last month up until three days ago.

The newer testing does a better job of detecting drug use; some tests can indicate the use of any illicit substance for up to three months prior to the test. However, all that means is that problem drug users who wish to go straight and re-enter the workforce have a longer wait before they can apply for work. Without gainful employment, how much harder is it for a recovering addict to stay sober?

There must be a good reason for American businesses spending up to $1 billion dollars per year on drug testing. One of the usual reasons for this expenditure is workforce productivity.

However, when independent researchers analyzed the statistics on drug testing and productivity, they found some surprising results. According to The Committee on Drug Use in the Workplace (CDUW) assembled by the government's own National Institute of Drug Abuse, "The empirical results suggest that drug testing programs do not succeed in improving productivity. Surprisingly, companies adopting drug testing programs are found to exhibit lower levels of productivity than their counterparts that do not."

How could a company actually lose productivity by drug testing workers? CDUW suggests four possible reasons:

1) Drug testing is expensive. Tests cost around $50 per worker. A congressional committee estimated that the cost of each positive result in government testing was $77,000 because the positive rate was only 0.5%. Then there's the costs of administration, medical review, follow-up tests for positive results, treatment or discipline for the worker, or searching, hiring, and training a new worker.

2) Drug testing lowers employee morale. An overwhelming majority of workers find drug testing to be an invasion of privacy. They consider drug testing unfair when it is only detecting prior use, not current impairment. They find it profoundly unfair that these tests do not consider the abuse of alcohol, which is a more significant factor in workplace safety and productivity. The lowered morale causes employees to show less loyalty to a company, not work as hard, and good workers may seek other jobs with non-drug testing firms.

3) Drug use may actually increase productivity for some people. The CDUW found that moderate use of drugs or alcohol had either a positive effect or no effect on worker productivity. Numerous studies have found that moderate marijuana use actually increased productivity. Furthermore, marijuana users who are treating pain, cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, arthritis, migraines, or even depression are much more productive than they would be without treatment.

4) Drug testing may lead marijuana smokers (by far the largest segment of the drug using population) to using harder drugs. Since most workplaces still choose the cheaper urine testing over the other tests, marijuana smokers may instead use harder drugs or alcohol, all of which are flushed quickly from the system. Marijuana's low addictiveness allows a casual user to remain healthy and productive, while the high addictiveness of the harder drugs make it more likely for the person to slip from casual use to the severe abuse that causes the illness, absenteeism, safety risks, and low productivity the drug tests were meant to alleviate in the first place.

Another excuse offered for drug testing is workplace safety. We don't want to have drug-impaired workers operating heavy machinery, public transportation, or any other industry where safety is of paramount concern. Of course, this reasoning falls flat when we recall that drug testing does not detect impairment. But perhaps one could assume that someone who has used drugs in the past may be more likely to use them on the job and endanger fellow employees and the public.

Unfortunately, the data do not support that assumption. Many companies use some form of impairment testing, a system that does not test for drugs, but rather hand-eye coordination, concentration, and reaction times. Those companies that have used these systems have found that severe fatigue and illness, not drug or alcohol use, are the most common causes of workplace accidents.

One added advantage of these tests is that they do reduce the level of workplace accidents. Also, workers are much more accepting of impairment tests, as they do not violate privacy and are perceived to be fairer than drug testing. Also, the impairment tests are much cheaper to administer and they actually detect the problem that drug testing does not -- worker impairment.

The final nail in the coffin of any workplace drug testing argument is the fact that casual drug users (once per week or less) are just as likely to find employment and hold down a job as their non-drug using counterparts. Our drug testing regime has not kept casual drug users out of the workplace at all, and those users are not adversely affecting productivity, safety, or their own career goals.

Businesses and government aren't the only entities routinely testing for drugs. Our schools are now testing our children for evidence of illicit drug use. In a series of controversial rulings, the Supreme Court has steadily added to the number of our children being drug tested.

First they allowed students to be tested for cause; if a student was suspected of using or possessing drugs on campus, he or she could be tested. Next they ruled that students involved with extracurricular athletics could be tested randomly, citing the need for safety in potentially dangerous sports activities.

Most recently, the justices have decided that students in any extracurricular activity, from band to chess club, could be tested randomly. Justice Clarence Thomas expressed the opinion of the slim 5-4 majority stating that children involved in after-school activities voluntarily give up some of their rights to privacy.

Many of the same issues of safety and productivity are raised in support of drug testing students, and they are met with the same evidence found in the workplace. No significant differences in accidents or performance are found between schools that drug test and those that do not, nor between students who pass drug tests and those who fail.

However, with the student population there are other arguments that are stated: we need to send a message to students that drug use will not be tolerated and we need to provide disincentives for students stop using drugs.

But this argument also falls flat when confronted with the evidence. A federally-funded study in 2003 of over 76,000 students in almost 900 schools found no correlation between drug testing and student drug use. Kids were just as likely to use drugs at the drug testing schools as the non-drug testing schools.

Moreover, just as workplace drug testing has the unintended consequence of lowering morale and productivity, school drug testing has its unintended consequences. Kids who might be falling in with the wrong crowd are discouraged from joining the after-school sports or clubs that would provide a healthier environment. Kids already enrolled in extra-curricular activities must sacrifice their privacy and discover that their word and their achievements are not trusted.

Of course, like workplace drug testing, there's the added expense of operating such a program, a cost that weighs heavily against chronically insufficient school budgets. The cost of one positive drug test result could have bought new instruments for the band, computers for the classroom, or equipment for the team.

Further compounding the futility of all drug testing is the fact that there is no perfect drug test. Every test gives a significant amount of false-positives and false-negatives. Many common over-the-counter medications can show up as an illicit drug. Cold tablets containing pseudoephedrine may be detected as amphetamines (speed). Cold remedies with dextromethorphan can register positive for opiates (heroin). Naproxen/ibuprofen-based pain relievers give positives for cannabis (marijuana). Nasal sprays sometimes indicate for MDMA (ecstasy).

Even some common foods can cause a failed drug test. Poppy seeds that you ingest from muffins or bagels can register as heroin. Large amounts of riboflavin (vitamin B-2) and perfectly legal (and incredibly healthy) hemp seed oil can register as marijuana.

Then of course there are many prescription drugs that can lead to a false positive. Amoxicillin, the antibiotic most prescribed for those allergic to penicillin, can show up as cocaine. Many asthma medications register as ecstasy or amphetamines. Even in the absence of these pharmaceuticals, some medical conditions can register a false positive. Kidney infection, liver disease, and diabetes can all lead to false positives for cocaine, ecstasy, opiates, or amphetamines.

Worst of all, you may fail a drug test through no fault of your own. If you inhale second-hand marijuana smoke, like at a rock concert or a friend's house, you could test positive for days. A small fraction of people excrete larger amounts of certain enzymes in their urine that may produce a false positive. And one researcher hypothesizes that the higher levels of melanin (the pigment producing cell) found in darker-skinned people may lead to positives for marijuana, because melanin and THC metabolites share a similar molecular structure.

For every false positive there is a person who has suffered the indignity of the accusation, the suspicion of family, co-workers, and friends, the threat of job loss or school suspension, and the burden of proving themselves innocent of a crime they did not commit. For every false negative there is the time, money, and effort wasted failing to discover someone who is actually using drugs.

But beyond the obvious futility and waste involved, there is one superseding argument against drug testing: it is un-American.

Our Founding Fathers laid out our basic liberties in the Bill of Rights. Drug testing violates at least two of our most sacred liberties.

Our 5th Amendment lays out two basic legal concepts: that we cannot be compelled to testify against ourselves and that we are innocent until proven guilty. Drug testing assumes that you are guilty until your body proves you to be innocent. Being compelled to provide urine, hair, saliva, or blood is a testimony against yourself. The Founders were clearly against compelling the citizenry toward self-incrimination; they had seen the results of tyrants using these techniques throughout history. It's a shame our courts haven't been as wise.

Our 4th Amendment is the basis for our right to privacy and freedom from government investigations and seizures without warrant and probable cause. Drug testing is certainly an invasion of privacy; it's hard to imagine how a stranger watching you urinate isn't an invasion of privacy. If there is no probable cause to believe you have committed a crime, there is no good reason to seize your bodily fluids.

Sadly, courts have decided that going to work or school is a voluntary activity, that you exchange some of your expectation to privacy in getting a job or an education, and that employers and educators are not the police or government. It's hard for me to imagine how work or education is truly voluntary; I guess that homelessness and ignorance are a viable choice in their minds; a choice I think would lead to more drug abuse, not less.

For many people, there is no choice but to swallow their pride, surrender their rights, face the embarrassment, risk the false positive, and take the drug test. Almost half of all employers perform some sort of drug testing. The farther down the socio-economic scale, the more likely a worker will face a pre-employment drug test. Around 36% of financial, business, and professional services test their new hires, compared to more than three-fourths of manufacturing and more than 60% of wholesale, retail, and other services. Yet rates of illicit drug use remain fairly constant among all segments of society.

The cash-strapped schools are less likely to be testing for drugs. In 2003, some 19% of schools had drug testing for cause, only 5% tested student-athletes, and only 4% tested participants in all extra-curricular activities. But for the student at these schools, unlike the worker, attendance is compulsory and there aren't many other options available. Their choices are to either avoid all extracurricular activities (which can be determining factors in college selection and future career) or suffer the same risks and indignities as their parents in the workforce.

Drug testing is but one of the many failures in our government's war on casual drug users, and its failure to achieve its stated goals is one of the easiest to prove. Fortunately, many companies are coming to recognize this fact -- rates of workplace and school drug testing have declined steadily since 1990. But there remains a federal government with a strong inclination toward abrogating the rights of citizens to look "tough on crime", and many industries that stand to gain from increased drug testing.

Personally, I just try to imagine what possible argument could have convinced hemp farmers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington to pee in a cup in order to get a job.

[Alex]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

Well written.

If you're going to test an employee, how about you test them on their workforce skills...

[Rodak]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

I have Arthritis in my neck.

Have for 27 years.

I am allergic to aspirin and get really wildly inconsistent results from anti-inflammatories in general.

The only medicine that helps my pain is a TriCyclic AntiDepressant.

It is proven to help with chronic pain, but it causes false positives for everything from Heroin to Marijuana! They claim that they can distinguish if they know what they are looking for, but I know for a fact that the test to distinguish this is 10 times the cost of the regular test! They say they'll do it... but they don't.

I refuse drug tests.

Therefore I have lower paying jobs.

I Fluffing Hate America!

I have been on the same job, being the entire Lab staff for a small chemical manufacturing company, for 9 years.

But that is not enough.

They want to know what is in my bloodstream now!

Fluff this.

I'll go back into my own business before submitting to such garbage.

It is an outrage that society's response to a few irresponsible Poopy-Faces selling drugs to children is to make responsible people who pay their mortgages pee in a cup.

Big Brother is not just watching anymore...

Now He wants a Date! (I would phrase that differently... but there are children present!)

[The Toecutter]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

What's so invasive about drug testing is not only the method of which it is usually done, not only the blatant disregard for a person's civil rights, but also what other information is often collected and filed from the results.

Companies often find out that women are pregnant from samples collected, for instance, due to the hormones found.

This information is routinely sold to other companies, or collected by potential employers when they do background checks on individuals. If you ever get drug tested, chances are, any information collected from it will be filed for life and there won't be much you can do to keep it private. Although technically in most states it is illegal for such information to be released without one's consent, that law is rarely followed or properly enforced.

Further, whether or not I smoke some ganga in my own spare time is no business of either an employer or the government, just like it is none of their damn business whether I attend church or not, or what I browse on the internet at home. They have no right to know this without the consent of the person in question, yet they force individuals to provide evidence and self-incriminate themselves anyway.

In essence, testing to see if an individual has used drugs at any point in time and then refusing to hire them based on that is discrimination. Only the courts say it is legal(in spite of the constitution).


****EDIT****

And Rodak, you might want to check this list of companies who don't do drug testing. It was a growing list, but the site got taken offline. But it can still be veiwed through archive.org!

http://web.archive.org/web/200503310...om/nontesters/

It's last archival was March of 2005. It may not be 100% up to date, but it is still useful.

Also, here's a list of companies that do drug testing, so you know who to avoid:

www.testclean.com/dtcompanies/searchcompany2.cfm

Look at some on the list in my own state of Missouri for instance. Steak and Shake? Custom Cuts? Petsmart? Bandana's Barbeque? The implications of someone using drugs and showing up to work intoxicated in companies like such are virtually nil to begin with, let alone someone who might have did some reefer days or weeks before applying and is clearly not intoxicated...

[Cosmic Jeff]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

I had a drug test last week. It really was a waste of time.

*After the test was administered and I had filled out the paperwork*

Nurse - "Do you have any questions or concerns?"

Me - "Um, can I wash my hands now?"

Nurse - "DO NOT WASH YOUR HANDS UNTIL I SPECIFY WHEN THE TEST IS COMPLETE!"

*Nurse takes 2 seconds to take the test tube and seal it in a plastic baggy*

Nurse - "You can wash your hands now."

[Red Dragon]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

Further, whether or not I smoke some ganga in my own spare time is no business of either an employer or the government, just like it is none of their damn business whether I attend church or not, or what I browse on the internet at home. They have no right to know this without the consent of the person in question, yet they force individuals to provide evidence and self-incriminate themselves anyway.

Well, the last thing I want is to have a bus driver that uses mind altering substances. Weeeeee BOOM! Well great there goes another bus, yet another $5000 down the drain because we dont test to see if the bus driver is a user or not, OH WELL.

Another example? Well lets try somthing closer to home for some fans. Sports, because in this example nobody uses any testing for substance they get 10-14 (large but maybe) players that actually use marajuana reqularly, now comes game time, those players are up to bat (or in the huddle or whatever) and the game seems to dwindle down to almost a landslide for the other team. Why? We wont know. I could be that they used somthing in thier bodies that made 'em lose the season we'll never know. OH WELL.

Heck, even the church example you gave is still used. I dont EVER think a teacher at a catholic school, would be allowed if they are jewish.


Drug testing, even if it is violating privacy, is needed if we dont want bad things to happen.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

Well, the last thing I want is to have a bus driver that uses mind altering substances. Weeeeee BOOM! Well great there goes another bus, yet another $5000 down the drain because we dont test to see if the bus driver is a user or not, OH WELL.

Being a user is one thing. Being intoxicated is quite another.

The latter affects driving ability, whilethe former has absolutely no bearing on it. Marijuana, for instance, is only intoxicating for roughly one to three hours, but it shows up in **** for weeks.

Another example? Well lets try somthing closer to home for some fans. Sports, because in this example nobody uses any testing for substance they get 10-14 (large but maybe) players that actually use marajuana reqularly, now comes game time, those players are up to bat (or in the huddle or whatever) and the game seems to dwindle down to almost a landslide for the other team. Why? We wont know. I could be that they used somthing in thier bodies that made 'em lose the season we'll never know. OH WELL.

Unless they were intoxicated during the game, smoking marijuana in their spare time is simply not going to harm their performance anymore than chewing tobacco or cigarettes...

Heck, even the church example you gave is still used. I dont EVER think a teacher at a catholic school, would be allowed if they are jewish.

But you site the example of a catholic school, not a typical business environment where most Americans are employed. For an employer to discriminate against drug users, who do not show up to work stoned, is just the same for an employer to discriminate against people who drink alcohol in their spare time, smoke cigarettes in their spare time, and even discriminate against people on basis of religion, and other personal choices.

Drug testing, even if it is violating privacy, is needed if we dont want bad things to happen.

Bad things happened before drug testing, and they still do happen even after such policies were implemented.

They are simply unconstitutional, discriminatory, and accomplish nothing substantial or significant.

[thetruecoolness]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

Drug testing, even if it is violating privacy, is needed if we dont want bad things to happen.

This is a very dangerous comment. This is why our privacy is in the almost nonexistent state it is since so many people don't want "bad things" to happen many of our privacies have been taken away. So privacy for privacies sake should be reason enough to not do things like this. Of course you would never want anyone to be on these while they are working, it is the same as coming to work drunk which is a legal drug, or on sleeping pills or other medicine like that. Lets face it the only reason marijuana is illegal is because the government can't tax it and no companies are making money on it, this is why marijuana is illegal and tobacco is not, though tobacco is much worse for you, and the added nicotine should be illegal since gaining customers by making them form a physical addiction should hardly be considered good business practice. So why don't people do after them, lobbyist, and lots and lots of money. So while I don't care either way about drugs as I don't use them and don't plan on it, if other people want to and aren't bothering me, or wasting my tax dollars on medicare because it so be it. Its their body, let them do what they will with it, it can't be too much worse than the legal drugs or fast food for that matter.

Now what really bothers me is when my privacy is taken away for this so called safety that will take it's place. This is how police states are started, breed fear among the people who will then gladly give up all personal freedom in the name of safety. This is why your cell phone conversations are now essentially public record, the police can search you without warning thanks to the Patriot act. So though many people don't see privacy as a means in itself I think it is and it's one of the biggest checks we have from big government, and nosey corporations, my choice to use or not use drugs should not be important to them until I start affecting the community. Yes there are some grey areas but I still say privacy is more important than safety, as even with perfect information most things still can't be prevented, look at 9/11 where they supposedly had all the intelligence needed and still did nothing (up for debate yes, and possibly not true but still something to think about in the safety vs privacy issue).

[Garr123]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

bad things to happen.

How vague of you.

[Riotsword]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

It IS a pretty weak argument. What, exactly, shall we define "bad things" as?

Good and Bad are completely subjective. Terrorists are "bad" and "evil" here, while they're "heroes" to those that hate America and so on.

I, for one, think that not being able to hold a job in a country where you MUST have a steady job in order to survive(unless you're in that top one percent where your daddy/mommy has a trust fund), due to that fact that you may have done drugs at one time in your life, is a "bad thing".

Like I said, Good and Bad are completely subjective.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

I had a drug test last week. It really was a waste of time.

*After the test was administered and I had filled out the paperwork*

Nurse - "Do you have any questions or concerns?"

Me - "Um, can I wash my hands now?"

Nurse - "DO NOT WASH YOUR HANDS UNTIL I SPECIFY WHEN THE TEST IS COMPLETE!"

*Nurse takes 2 seconds to take the test tube and seal it in a plastic baggy*

Nurse - "You can wash your hands now."

Quite a shame that throwing it into the *****'s eyes would get you an assault charge.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

I'm going to post another article on this subject.

A few additional points should be raised that the media has failed to adequately cover.

-Executives often get to bypass such demeaning practices, while workers often do not. This is hypocritical.At least this article briefly mentioned this.

-The article calls drug testing a 'perceived' invasion of privacy. Perceived? It *is* an invasion of privacy. An employer is forcing one to not only tell them what they've been doing in their own home over the past few weeks, but also forcing one to let their employer potentially know they have all sorts of various medical issues. Urine samples can detect everything from pregnancy in females, to hepatitis, and even sperm counts in some males. Further, the samples collected are not the property of the individual tested! They are often the subject of misuse, traded to other companies, and hardly kept confidential. Samples are stored, rather than destroyed.

-As to the claim of the potential employee having the freedom not to take a drug test by rejecting a potential job, this is dubious at best. Everyone needs a means of sustenance, and there exist far more jobs from companies that do test than from those that don't. Not everyone wishing to make the choice to avoid this practice will be able to find a job that allows them to.

-Bernardo, interviewed in this article claims “We want a drug free society.” I guess he means employers and politicians, as the roughly 30 million pot users in the U.S. along with a majority of the country's population say otherwise... Further, America's main drug of choice, alcohol, is rarely tested for and past use cannot be detected like pot. America is by no means a drug free society, has never been a drug free society, and its population is by no means striving to be such a society. One only needs to note the constant variety of pharmaceutical drugs pimped to the mass population by the corporations. Many of these prescription medications are far more dangerous and detrimental to performance in the workplace than pot as well...

-Despite the claims of Bernardo in this article, little evidence exists to show pot is a gateway drug. In fact, what evidence there is available suggests it isn't. When the Netherlands legalized marijuana use in the early 1970s, use of harder drugs like cocaine and opium have actually declined. The Rand Corporation in 1993 published a study showing a negative correlation between marijuana use and use of harder drugs and alcohol, suggesting use of marijuana actually substitutes for the use of harder and potentially dangerous drugs.

-Bernardo's assertion that an employer has the right to know if a potential employee is engaging in illegal activity is faulty at best. Does that mean an employer should have the right to put a blackbox in ones car to make sure they don't speed? Or perhaps should be able to tap one's phone line or internet connection to make sure the employee or potential employee in question is not making threatening remarks toward government officials? Or even place a camera in ones home to assure that they never serve alcohol to their underage son or daughter? Maybe track all their purchases to make sure they might not be violating local municipal laws buy buying banned books or pornography outside of the area in question? An employer is NOT a police officer. For them to be granted the legal privileges of one by allowing them to drug test employees would be akin to making them such, only they can also force one to incriminate themselves and be searched without a warrant, court order, or probable cause. I must reiterate that this isn't constitutional, especially given these corporations are government chartered!

-It's quite telling that corporate representatives get embarrassed when asked about their companies drug testing policy, and refuse to publicly disclose that information. So an individual person has to have their privacy violated by one of the most demeaning methods possible(including in many cases having their genitals stared at while they **** to make sure they aren't smuggling in urine from others or synthetic urine), and it's perfectly fine, but when one asks a company about their drug testing policy, that is intrusive!? Take Safeway for instance, citing that whether they do drug tests is no one's business but their own, yet it's Safeway's business whether employees smoke reefer on their own spare time in their own damn home!? Why are these companies so embarrassed to admit their drug testing policy, while they proudly proclaim themselves as being “drug free workplaces”? These people running these companies should be dragged out into the street and shot. ****ing hypocrites.

-The Drug Free Workplace Act so often cited is extortion by definition.

-The article claims that the Supreme Court's ruling exemplifies how strong anti drug sentiment is in this country. The major fallacy in that claim is that a group of aged, conservative supreme court justices by no means reflects the will of the people.

-Politicians and supreme court justices aren't drug tested. If it is good enough for your average Joe, why isn't it good enough for them?



http://www.passthetest.com/drug_testing_news.htm

Got the pink slip? Drug testing has become the norm

By Marianne Costantinou
Source: San Francisco Chronicle

So, you're looking for a job, one of the zillion workers who got the pink slip in recent months since the boom went bust. Or you're a recent graduate, about to get a full-time job for the first time. Or you're sick of your old job - the place has gotten too corporate, management is starting job evaluations or some other type of torture, you feel unappreciated and underpaid - and you just want out.
So, you get your resume polished, hustle up some references and head out into the proverbial job market with your proverbial hat in hand. Better save the other hand for forking over an all-too-real cup of urine. Yours.

Drug testing. It's here and it's big.

"Drug testing is by far the norm," says a proponent, Mark A. de Bernardo, head of the Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit coalition of 120 major employers from across the country, and a director of San Francisco's Littler Mendelson, an employment law firm that claims to be the nation's biggest. "Anybody getting out of high school and college or switching jobs should expect to be drug tested."

"Many workers now do it without thinking twice," says Ethan Nadelmann, head of the Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation in New York City, which advocates for drug policy reform, including an end to drug testing. "In some respects, drug testing is rapidly becoming as much a national tradition as mom and apple pie."

And if you don't pass the drug test - no matter how smart you are, how hard- working, how experienced, how fab your references, how downright likable you are - you won't get the job.

That's true even here in so-called Mellow California and the liberal Bay Area, historically in the vanguard when it comes to drug experimentation and tolerance, both culturally and legally. If anything, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in May that reaffirmed the illegality of pot - even the medicinal marijuana that was championed in the state's Proposition 215 - shows how strong the anti-drug sentiment still is in the country.

Little wonder, then, that drug testing has become part of the typical job application, with millions of wannabe workers tested each year. Most often it's a urine test, but even strands of hair, a few drops of saliva, a vial of blood or a week's worth of sweat on a skin patch are being demanded to check for drugs in your system, from pot to the hard stuff.
The trend, now in its 15th year, has spawned a $5.9 -billion industry in drug-testing labs, a burgeoning underground economy in guerrilla counter-labs and mom-and- pop Web sites that peddle products that swear to fake-out the tests, some two-dozen state laws, and a slew of court cases challenging the drug-test habit on privacy and Fourth Amendment issues.

What happened?
One Cup at a Time
At first, only the military did drug testing, and civilians were pretty much spared the need to pee in a cup to impress the boss. But then along came President Ronald Reagan and all that 1980s chatter to "Just Say No." Middle America was snorting coke up the ying-yang, drug hysteria was in full swing and the War on Drugs was turning into another Vietnam. Enter Reagan's Executive Order 12564, which made drug abstinence - on and off-duty - a condition of federal employment. Reagan's rule set guidelines for drug-testing programs. The Pandora's Box was now officially open. The war on drugs was gonna be fought on the home front, in corporate bathrooms, one pee cup at a time.

It wasn't long before everyone was jumping on the bandwagon. In 1988, Congress passed the Drug Free Workplace Act, which said that any company that wanted a lucrative federal contract had better test its workers for drugs. States dangled similar carrots. A few years later, in 1991, Congress got into the drug-testing act again, requiring drug tests - including random tests - for anybody in safety-sensitive positions, like airline pilots, truck drivers, train and bus conductors. Meanwhile, the drug-testing craze spread into other sectors. School athletes, welfare recipients, folks on probation or parole - the kinds of people authority figures wanted to keep tabs on - were suddenly being ordered to take drug tests to maintain their privileges.

But by far, the widest spread was in the private work sector, especially as a condition of getting hired. In the first decade since Reagan's order, drug testing was up 277 percent, says the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the practice. Though top executives typically get to bypass that step in the job interview, companies that require drug testing usually require it of everyone else who wants to work there, according to experts, whether blue- collar or white-collar. That means assembly-line workers and secretaries. Computer analysts and bankers. Salesclerks and even the guy bagging groceries at the neighborhood supermarket.

These days, companies that test for drugs are a who's who of big business in every industry. General Motors tests for drugs. So does Bank of America, at least sometimes. Intel. Wal-Mart. Anheuser-Busch. Safeway. The San Francisco Chronicle. Home Depot and Ikea even have signs on their doors trumpeting that they have a drug-free workplace.
At first, drug testing caused a stir, with civil rights advocates and labor unions and editorials lambasting the perceived invasion of privacy. Lawsuits led to court cases and, in some states, some legislative curbs. In California, the State Supreme Court has frowned on drug testing on current employees, either as random tests or as requirements for job promotions. In 1986, San Francisco became the nation's first city to ban random testing outright. But across the state, including San Francisco, workers in safety-sensitive jobs like transportation are still subjected to the random testing required in the federal Department of Transportation guidelines. And there's no statewide or city ban on testing prospective hires, the belief being that the applicant has the freedom to choose not to apply for the job.
But even with some legal curbs, drug testing has still quietly mushroomed.

All told, 67 percent of the nation's largest companies test their employees or applicants for drugs, according to a 2001 survey by the American Management Association, a New York consulting firm that claims to have 7,000 corporate clients representing one-fourth of the U.S. workforce. And though the percentage of companies who test is down from its peak - 81 percent in 1996 - it still means that each year, millions of workers are giving more than just their best effort to the job.

Poppy Bagels Not an Excuse
The result is that drug testing is big business. Just one drug-testing company, SmithKline Beecham, now called GlaxoSmithKline, did 24 million drug tests in a decade, from 1988 to 1998, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Though one of the nation's largest labs, they're hardly alone in what Standard & Poor's values as a $5.9 billion industry. The Drug & Alcohol Testing Industry Association (DATIA), based in Washington D.C., has 1,100 members, including drug labs, collection facilities and equipment makers. And its membership roster, says its executive director, Laura Norfolk, "is just the tip of the iceberg."

Two firms - PharmChem, a giant urine-testing lab which was based in Menlo Park until June, when it relocated to Texas, and Psychemedics, the nation's leading hair-testing facility, based in Culver City (Los Angeles County) - alone do $60 million in business.
Urine tests, the most popular, cost an average of $20 to $25 per sample. Hair, the latest fad because it can track a longer history of drug use, costs about $50.

Even drug-test opponents admit that the technology these days makes a false positive reading rare. Gone are the days when a test positive for heroin, for example, could theoretically be blamed on eating a couple of poppy seed bagels.

At the minimum, each sample is tested for what is called the Big Five: pot, cocaine (including crack), methamphetamines (including its cousins, amphetamines and Ecstasy), PCP (also known as angel dust), and opiates (like heroin and morphine). Employers don't usually ask for the sample to be tested for prescription drugs, drug labs say. They also don't typically screen for alcohol or cigarette use, since they are legal.

A urine test can detect the residue, called metabolites, of hard-core drugs up to about 72 hours after use, but heavy pot users are usually tagged with the telltale THC chemical in their system for as much as three to four weeks. That means pot users are more likely to get caught than hard-core heroin or cocaine addicts.

With hair tests, drug labs claim that the hair shafts of a 60-strand, 1.5- inch sample that's snipped close to the scalp can trace drug use going back three months. And in case the job applicant is bald or decides to get a crew cut before the drug test, the hair can be snipped from another part of the body. And that doesn't mean your knuckles.
Because false positives can't be counted on, wannabe workers who do drugs try to outfox the tests. The most common way is to quit the drugs cold turkey as soon as they know they're facing a drug test, and then drink gallons and gallons of water for days before the test, hoping to flush the metabolites from their system. But many turn to a slew of companies they find advertised in High Times magazine or on the Internet. Each company claims to sell just the right product that will come to the rescue and help land that job.
With hilarious names and Web sites - www. urineluck.com, www.testingclean. com, www.passyourdrugtest.com, www.ezklean.com - these companies sell adulterants such as nitrites and bleach, diuretics, synthetic urine, chemically treated shampoos, herbal concoctions and a slew of other products.

Naturally, drug testing labs pooh-pooh the saboteurs' claims. But that still doesn't stop them from checking out High Times and scouring the Internet, and buying the products to test them out in their labs - just in case.

"You look at High Times when you want to know what the other side's thinking," says Ray Kelly, an Oakland forensic toxicologist who for seven years ran the urine and hair testing lab at Associate Pathologists Laboratories in Las Vegas. "In the chess game of drug testing, when they make a move, we have to respond to a move."

"We change and improve our formulas every six to 12 months to stay ahead of the labs," says Kevin Pressler, marketing manager of Cincinnati's urineluck. com, whose 10 products each sell for $32. "It's an inevitable cat-and-mouse game."

Counter-labs like urineluck.com have to keep changing their secret ingredients because once the drug labs spot them, they test for the new chemicals. Alas for the worker wannabe if adulterants or any sign of tampering is found in the sample: Drug labs say they automatically mark the sample as coming up positive for drugs - even if the only evidence is the attempted camouflage.

Good for America
Against this backdrop, two surveys suggest it's all much ado about nothing. For starters, the National Academy of Sciences concluded in 1994, after a three-year study, that there was no scientific evidence that drug tests ensure safety and productivity on the job. Secondly, companies who test for drugs seem to be going on blind faith that the tests live up to their goals. In 1996, the American Management Association, a pro-employer group, asked if companies had any "statistical evidence" that drug tests had an effect on accidents, illness, disability claims, theft or violence. Only 8 percent of the companies with drug-testing programs had done any cost-benefit analysis to see if their own programs worked.
One Silicon Valley company that did follow up was Hewlett-Packard. The Palo Alto computer and office equipment company tested applicants for a decade, from 1990 till last year, says Randy Lane, a spokesman. But so few applicants tested positive, he says, that the company dropped the policy as not being worth the cost.
Hewlett-Packard started drug testing because, says Lane, "Essentially, all of our competitors were doing it."

That's a big reason companies do adopt drug testing policies, says de Bernardo, and why they should. Companies don't want drug abuser rejects, he says, who couldn't get jobs elsewhere.

It's no surprise that the folks whose business is drug testing claim that drug testing is good for companies, good for workers, good for America.
"Employers have the single most effective weapon in the war on drugs: the paycheck," says de Bernardo. "It's a ripple effect. It's a success story as far as the community is concerned . We want a drug-free society."

But improving society is not the major corporate agenda behind drug testing, proponents admit. It's money. They claim that employee drug use costs companies big money, in loss of productivity and safety, in absenteeism, and in health and insurance costs, even when the drug use is marijuana at home on the weekends. The danger of marijuana use is that it's a gateway to harder drugs, says de Bernardo. Though most pot users don't graduate to harder drugs, he says, folks don't usually do heroin and cocaine without first doing pot.
"Some people don't go through that gate, some do. ...For some people, it will progress from Saturday night to midweek to more serious drugs," he says.

What's more, he and others add, even marijuana use is illegal, and companies have the right to know if an applicant or employee is engaged in illegal activity.

"Any illegal drug use is illegal" says Bill Thistle, general counsel for Psychemedics. "I think an employer has the right to expect you not to engage in felony behavior (even) on the weekend."

Actually, marijuana use is a misdemeanor. And in San Francisco, District Terence Hallinan has said repeatedly over the years that his office wouldn't prosecute anyone for smoking pot.

Big Business as Big Brother
On the flip side, drug testing has sent groups involved in civil rights and drug policy reform into a tizzy. To them, drug testing smacks of Big Business posing as Big Brother poking around in private lives.

"There's no end to that, the employer being a policeman," says Cliff Palefsky, a San Francisco civil rights and employment lawyer who wrote the city's ordinance banning random testing. "It's the most intrusive search, to literally penetrate your body fluids, search your chemistry, and determine what you have ingested."

If someone shows up at work clearly stoned, then test that one person, he and other drug-test opponents say. But don't suspect everyone by making everyone get tested. That's like having cops search everyone's home just in case there's a criminal - which goes to the heart of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches, albeit by government.
"Privacy is an important issue. To us, it's fundamental," says Lewis Maltby, head of the National Workrights Institute, a research and advocacy group on workplace issues based in Princeton, N.J., and the former director of the ACLU National Task Force on Civil Liberties in the Workplace. "You don't search someone's body and personal life unless you have some grounds to think they've done something wrong" .

"Has anyone ever heard of reference checks? Wouldn't that tell you more about their work habits than having them pee in a bottle?"

What's more, opponents add, drug tests don't distinguish between the occasional and the habitual user. A drug test shows only the residue of drugs that have been taken in the past three days to a month, not which drugs are actively in the person's system at the time of the test. So if companies are worried about safety and productivity, says Palefsky, they should be giving impairment tests - simple computer video games that gauge such things as eye- hand coordination, reflexes and concentration - each day they show up for work, not drug tests before they get hired.

"Drug tests for public safety is a fallacy," he says. "Impairment tests test for safety."
Besides, drug test opponents add, other personal problems can explain poor worker performance: fatigue, marital woes, shaky finances, watching "I Love Lucy" reruns at 3 a.m. - and hangovers from drinking. If employers can check if workers are using drugs after hours, civil rights advocates say, what other areas of personal lives can they investigate?

Rules and Procedures
Even toxicologists and others involved in drug testing voice concern.
Janet Weiss, a medical toxicologist at the University of California at San Francisco who does drug-testing consultations for companies, the courts and government agencies, says she's opposed to drug testing in the workplace because "They don't do what they're supposed to do." Studies haven't shown that testing improves productivity or saves employers money, she says. And she finds drug testing "demeaning."

"What it patently means is that the employer doesn't want `the wrong element' contaminating his/her workplace," she says, in an e-mail, "and you have to 'prove' you are innocent of using drugs."

Carolina Da Valle spent several years at a San Francisco medical clinic where job applicants would go to give urine samples. Her job was to set up the procedures for them to follow.
"I found it dehumanizing and humiliating to witness individuals having to urinate in a cup - knowing a nurse was standing an inch outside the door and listening to every drop of urine fall into the cup..." she says in an e-mail.

"The guilty ones were easy to spot: very nervous, in a hurry, usually with an almost ready-to-burst bladder due to excessive water drinking in the hopes of passing a surely positive drug screen off as a negative one."

The procedures at medical clinics and other collection facilities usually follow the strict guidelines set up by the federal Department of Transportation. Halle Weingarten, a forensic toxicologist who is one of the owners of Independent Toxicology Services in San Jose, spent 19 years as the chief forensic toxicologist at the Santa Clara crime lab. She says there are more rules and paperwork involved in handling a cup of urine than just about any evidence that came through her old police crime lab.

In drug testing, the big concern is called Chain of Custody, she says, meaning that, "You want to make sure the sample that's tested is the sample that came from John Doe."
As soon as the worker comes into her clinic, she checks their photo ID. A form is filled out with five multicarbon copies, with the worker's name, address, Social Security number, date, time and the name of the lab technician, known officially as the Collector. The worker is asked to remove his outer garments like jackets and coats, and leave his bags outside the bathroom. He then follows her in, and washes his hands in front of her. She next prepares the bathroom: she removes the soap so it can't be added to the urine to adulterate it; she tapes shut the water faucets and adds a blue chemical to the toilet bowl so water can't be added to the urine to dilute it. She then picks up a plastic opaque cup with a rim that's 3 inches wide. The cup is sealed with a lid. She opens it in front of the worker, hands him the cup, and warns him not to turn on the faucet or flush the toilet until she gives him permission. The worker then goes into the bathroom. She stands outside the door.
As soon as he comes back out with the cup, now filled with urine, she checks the faucets and toilet to make sure they haven't been used. She then checks the outside of the cup. There is a thermometer strip on it that goes from 90 to 100 degrees. The urine in the cup must be body temperature. If it is, the thermometer strip has a brightly colored spot. She checks for the spot, and notes it on the paperwork. Then, as the worker bears witness, she transfers the urine into two vials of about an ounce each. She adds a tamper- proof seal to each vial, initials them, dates them and asks the worker to sign each one. The vials then go in a sealed pouch, with the paperwork attached in an outside pocket in case of spillage. The worker is now allowed to go back in the bathroom to wash up and flush the toilet. Signed and sealed, the package of vials need to be delivered overnight to a drug testing lab like PharmChem or Psychemedics. The whole process takes about 15 minutes.

Most who come in seem resigned to it, she says.
"It's a fact of life," she says. "It's the way things are."

A Matter of Principle
Still, though resigned, workers aren't exactly turning cartwheels about drug tests. Drug users are understandably reluctant to take a drug test and risk losing out on a job, especially in these days of massive layoffs and hiring freezes. But even those who claim not to do drugs say they're opposed to the test on principle.

Lowell Moorcroft, an Oakland man who is in his 50s, says he was stunned recently when asked to sign a document agreeing to be tested for drugs when he applied for a data analyst job at a major HMO. It was the first time he's been asked in 30 years of work. He refused to sign, he says, because he was offended.

"It has nothing to do with the job, which is intellectual, professional and sedentary," he says in an e-mail. "It is invasive, demeaning, inegalitarian (i. e., are executives tested?)."
James Weissman, 44, a computer programmer who lives in Mountain View, has been asked to take a drug test only once in some 20-plus years and some 15 jobs. The request was in 1991, for a small data analysis company. He was out of work at the time and wanted the job, but he squawked when the drug test requirement was sprung on him at the end of the job interview. It was, he recalls, "Oh, one more thing," resume is great, you're great, we just need you to pee in a cup.

"I said `You've got to be kidding. I'm not operating heavy equipment here. I'm operating a computer,' " Weissman told the job interviewer.

To Weissman, asking him to pee in a cup was like the company telling him it didn't trust him - even though he says he gave his word that he didn't do drugs.

Weissman demanded to speak to the human resources director, hoping he could reason with him. What he found most maddening about the conversation, he says, was the director's inability to explain why the drug test was required other than the fact that it was company policy. To Weissman, it was like a parent telling a kid he had to do something "Because."

"This was very anti-worker," he says. "It was `We're going to impose an arbitrary rule on you. And we're not going to take your word for it.' If one person could justify it to me, no problem. But `Well, it's our policy. `Well, look, it's written down here' is not enough of an explanation. Why not bowel cavity inspections? You have to draw the line. You do not intrude, period."

Still, Weissman needed the job. He took the test, and the job.
"When push came to shove, I conceded," he says.

Drug Free in a Hurry
But for those who do drugs, it's more than principle that's at stake. With a drug test looming, it's a crash course to get clean.

Jason Everley, 30, a San Francisco computer consultant, says in an e-mail he can't count how many drug tests he's passed, given 72 hours' notice. His secret: "Drink lots of water and eat like a bird for three days. You'll end up ******* every relevant, detectable chemical out of your system."

But for others, a drug test means panic. With a urine test, metabolites for anything but pot will usually flush out of the system within a few days of abstinence, drug labs say. But with hair testing - the latest fad, with Psychemedics claiming 2,000 clients - drug use is harder to hide. Hair testing is controversial, with opponents claiming the dark, coarse hair of African Americans and many ethnic groups gives disproportionately high readings.

Many who face a drug test turn to companies who pledge get-clean-quick products. Urineluck.com not only sells Bake N Shake (at the test, pee in a plastic bag, shake it up, pour it in the cup, leaving the telltale drug toxins behind) and Urine Luck (a urine adulterant which zaps the drugs in the cup), but offers a chat room for folks to gripe and ask anxious questions. Other Web sites post what they say are testimonials from working stiffs who owe their jobs to the company's products.

High Times has a hot line, started in 1989, that claims it's given 150,000 callers, at $1.95 a minute, recorded advice on how to pass drug tests. Even Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman got into the act, in his book titled "Steal This Urine Test," with instructions on how to smuggle a plastic bag into the testing bathroom to substitute "clean" urine.

Hoffman's trick sounds a lot like The Whizzinator by Puck Technology, whose Web site claims it was founded by ex-'60s types. Perhaps the most famous of the guerrilla tactics, it's a $150 undergarment with a "bladder," heat pack and dehydrated synthetic urine. To get the fake **** in the cup, there's a handy-dandy, 3.5 inch prosthetic penis that's worn, the Web site says, "in front of your standard-issue" one and that comes in your choice of white, Latino, black, tan or brown. For women, the penis can be worn on the side to avoid the telltale bulge.

Despite the humor of such products, many Web sites profess sincerity. The folks at passyourdrugtest.com describe themselves as "freedom fighters" who believe in "people's rights to privacy" and that alternative lifestyles have "little or nothing to do with contributions you can make to work and society." To test their products - which include the $169.99 Bi-Cleanse Complete hair- cleansing shampoo that claims to get rid of toxins in hair shafts - the company says it flies staff members to Amsterdam every five months to visit the smoke shops, known as coffee shops, and get hard-core users to volunteer to test the products. The products absolutely work, they assure customers.

The drug labs love to mock the products - even as they keep tabs on them.
"We purchase these products to see what they are," says Thistle of Psychemedics. "It's just nothing. Plain shampoo. Repackaged shampoo. Prell. Water. Most of them are just rip-offs.
"Who's going to complain? `Yeah, I was trying to beat the test and they ripped me off.' ... We just get a chuckle out of it."

Companies Are Bashful
Curiously, companies in the corporate mainstream act as if they're being asked to pee in public when queried about their testing policy. Hired mouthpieces get all bashful, citing the indelicacy of discussing their human resources policies with total strangers. It's just too private.

Apple, the computer company whose advertising campaign dares folks to Think Different, declined to discuss the thinking behind their drug testing policy - or even whether they had one.

"In general, we just don't, you know, talk publicly about our human resources policy. Publicly we talk about our products," Tamara Weil-Hearon, a spokeswoman for the Cupertino company, says on a voice mail message. "Unfortunately, we're not going to participate in the story."

Chiron, the biotech giant that's quick to trumpet any success in its research labs, was also demure about whether it turned the urine or hair of prospective hires into lab experiments.
"We don't comment on our human resources policies," says John Gallagher, the media relations manager at the Emeryville facility. "That's our answer."

Martin Forrest, his boss at Chiron, didn't return a call seeking additional comment. Neither did Debra Lambert, national spokeswoman for Safeway food stores, which is headquartered in Pleasanton. A woman answering her phone - who identified herself as "just the messenger" - relayed that yes, Safeway did do drug tests but that no, beyond that, any explanation was nobody's business but Safeway's.

Meanwhile, EBay, Oracle, Genentech, Advanced Micro Devices, Yahoo and Applied Materials, to name the biggies, blew off the calls. Only Cisco (doesn't test), Sun Microsystems (doesn't test), Intel (does test), The San Francisco Chronicle (does test), Wells Fargo (doesn't test in Bay Area, does in other cities), Bank of America (does test, but only sometimes) and Hewlett- Packard (did test but stopped last year) responded.

Cisco just says it doesn't but didn't go into it in a voice mail message from Steve Langdon, one of a flotilla of flaks at the San Jose networking company. Sun Microsystems doesn't test, says spokeswoman Diane Carlini, because it wouldn't jibe with the culture and self-image of the Silicon Valley computer company.

No such self-image worries at Intel. Tracy Koon, director of corporate affairs for the Santa Clara chipmaker, says in an e-mail:
"Yes we do pre-employment drug testing. The goal of the program is to bar the habitual abuser of illegal drugs from the workplace. This is part of our ongoing commitment to maintaining a drug-free workplace. We began our program in 1992, in strict adherence to the fairness standards set forth by the Department of Transportation."

Maintaining a drug-free workplace is the thinking behind its testing of applicants, says Adrianne Cabanatuan, the recruitment manager for The San Francisco Chronicle, which has been testing most prospective hires for at least a decade, and began testing wannabe reporters and editors in June 1996. "We try to preserve a drug-free workplace," she says, "so that's one step toward it."

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo bank feels it's able to maintain its goal of a drug- free workplace without pre-employment testing in the Bay Area and most of the rest of its realm. "For the most part, we don't have any problems," says spokeswoman Donna Uchida. "If we do, we deal with it on an individual basis." The company does test, however, in Milwaukee and in Oregon, she says, where it's the norm among major employers.

Its competitor, Bank of America, also tests selectively. The company "reserves the right to drug test but I'd hate to say we do it across the board," says spokeswoman Juliet Don. The decision on whether to drug test the prospective hire is subjective, based on, she says,"the role and responsibility of the associate."

Note: The drug-testing industry is a multibillion dollar profit center. And a giant weapon in the War on Drugs. So don't be surprised if you have to pony up prior to your next job interview.

Marianne Costantinou is a Magazine staff writer.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Author: Marianne Costantinou
Published: Sunday, August 12, 2001
Copyright: 2001 San Francisco Chronicle - Page 12
Contact: letters@sfchronicle.com
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/

[gray]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

i thought drug testing was how they put the tracking chips in our brains!!!

[IRC]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

No. The only reason the plant spent the time, effort, and money to test their employees was due to a police tip that there was a drug problem at the plant. In other words, there was no reason for the company to believe they had a drug problem.

Except for the police tip. But lets not let reason get in the way of a crusade.


The way I see it drugs are illegal, when you sign your contract to work for people you are agreeing not to take those drugs and to let them test you for them. Regardless of the factors brought up in the article that's what you agreed to.

4) Drug testing may lead marijuana smokers (by far the largest segment of the drug using population) to using harder drugs. Since most workplaces still choose the cheaper urine testing over the other tests, marijuana smokers may instead use harder drugs or alcohol, all of which are flushed quickly from the system. Marijuana's low addictiveness allows a casual user to remain healthy and productive, while the high addictiveness of the harder drugs make it more likely for the person to slip from casual use to the severe abuse that causes the illness, absenteeism, safety risks, and low productivity the drug tests were meant to alleviate in the first place.

That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Drug Testing is virtually useless.

Except for the police tip. But lets not let reason get in the way of a crusade.

A police tip could be a mere accusation. Judging from such a thing alone is hardly reasonable.

The way I see it drugs are illegal, when you sign your contract to work for people you are agreeing not to take those drugs and to let them test you for them. Regardless of the factors brought up in the article that's what you agreed to.

Only it's not much of an agreement when the vast majority of companies drug test and you need a job in order to put food on the table. It is more or less coercion. The individual is being presented with two general choices: poverty or submission. This is hardly a choice at all.

Just because something is illegal does not give a business the right to peer into one's private life. Speeding is illegal. So does that mean an employer should be allowed to force people to put black boxes in their cars to make sure they don't drive over the speed limit? Does that mean an employer should be allowed to place cameras into people's homes to make sure they don't serve alcohol to their children under the pretext that they might be? Does that mean employers should be able to track purchases of their employees to make sure they aren't buying indgredients to make methanphetamine or are violating local statutes that might outlaw possession of banned literature? Drug testing is a violation of privacy just like the aforementioned hypothetical scenarios, that interferes with the lives of far more law abiding citizens than it does the lives of drug users. It usurps the civil liberties of individual people without reason or probable cause. A contract as such is also discriminatory.