Is a company required to fire anyone who takes drugs?

[napi21]

I kknow most companies require drug tests before you're hired, and if you fail a random test while employed, they terminate you.

I'm just wondering if there is some regulation that makes drug testing mandatory, like getting proof of citizenship is, or is this just something most companies have decided to do on their own.

[WillowTree]

1. So far as I know, it's not the law.

It's just something that many, if not most, companies do to protect themselves.

[Somawas]

2. Its not the law.

[Ready4Change]

3. Not required, except perhaps for Federal and State employees?

I'm assuming some here. But I think the smaller the organization, the more leeway they have. As the org gets larger, groups like stockholders, health plans, and public interests start applying pressures to take anti-drug measures.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

29. Truck drivers have to be randomly tested...

by law, I'm sure there are other occupations where it's a law.

[madrchsod]

4. no

it`s up to the company to decide whether to fire or give the employee a rehab option. union contracts usually have the rehab policy.

[napi21]

5. Thanks for the info. I just heard on another thread that WM

fired the entire deli staff in one store because they failed the drug test. I know it must be very difficult for WM to get anyone to work there (except some poor onl people) and I would think if they aren't under the influence while on the job, it would be in the company's interest to let them work.

See, a niumber of years ago, it was not only acceptable, but expected that the management went to lunch and had a martini or two. Now, everybody (except for management i suspect) is expected to be lily clean, no matter what job they have.

Sounds a bit hypocritical to me.

[Caution]

6. Most companies? I have never in my professional career

been required to submit to drug testing. I wouldnt even consider working for a company that required it and I don't use drugs

[KaliTracy]

9. I've had to -- and it's a small software company -- but we do have people

who install computer systems and displays in Airports, etc. -- but I don't see the point.

Didn't have to get drug tested as a teacher -- though I did have to pay for my own background check for every school I substituted at before I got a full-time job ($50 a pop).

Don't do drugs either, but also feel that this isn't a company's business -- I've known companies who did HAIR testing -- and even one experimentation years ago could show up as positive. That's just wrong.

[napi21]

10. Well, I worked for a good size corp. Mfg, Dist and retail.

They required EVERYONE to take a drug test, even when we hired a new CEO!

I don't take drugs either, and never worried about taking the tests, I just wondered why so many companies bought onto this idea.

[misanthrope]

21. Pretty simple...

...it's just another manifestation of drug paranoia and demonization.

Because it's perfectly okay to drink yourself into oblivion each and every night, but Heaven forbid you smoked some grass at a party last week.

[MrModerate]

7. If the company takes federal contracts . . .

There's a "Drug-free Workplace" requirement that pretty much demands firing for detected illegal drug use (even when that use takes place away from work). Legal drug abuse (i.e., alcohol) is not similarly prohibited -- except during working hours.

[Shipwack]

8. I don't have a reference handy,

... but I believe that it might be required for anyone that works with narcotics, such as nurses or pharmacists...

[Warpy]

11. Not among health care workers

If you get caught with dirty urine, you go into a treatment program if you want to keep your job. Nurses whose drug of choice is in the narc cabinet may lose their narc privileges for a period of time. Urine is collected every week while the health care worker is in rehab, and the period varies from state to state, usually two to five years.

If you get caught with dirty urine a second time, you're fired and generally have your license suspended.

[woofless]

12. It is not the law that drives the companies to test.

It is the insurance companies. They reduce the rates of liability and workers comp. for companies that test. They require it. NO employer is strong enough to defy them. Remember when your company picnic incuded beer? Nuff said.

Woof

[napi21]

14. I quit to care for my aging mother several years ago, but my last

company picnic still had beer on tap.

I'm not a lawyer hater, but the damn lawsuits in the US is really destroying everything!

[stanwyck]

13. We'd have to shut our doors

if everyone who used drugs was fired.

[napi21]

15. Obviously you can't say whre that is, but it's interesting.

I guess it depends on what drugs you're talking about, but I must admit, it sure seems like the exception these days!

[stanwyck]

28. We're a small

graphics company of 40 people. We joke that if all the potsmokers were fired, we'd only have one customer service person, an accountant, and one sales assistant left. My very unscientific survey is that potsmokers are fairly reliable workers who don't miss work often and are rarely sick.
Needless to say, the owners have never even brought up drug testing.

[Snotcicles]

16. There tough on truck drivers. Random testing even just like convicts n/t

[OnionPatch]

17. No

at least not in some places. My sister tested positive for cannabis once but the company liked her and wanted her so much they asked her to take the job anyway. They said they'd forget the test results if she just told them she would stay away from it from there on in.

[Mnemosyne]

18. Someone I know just got tested

for a job WASHING CARS on a lot!

This seems a bit ridiculous to me, but maybe I'm just too librul!

[Pepperbelly]

19. they are victims of the insurance and drug-testing industries. nt

[mitchum]

20. Another triumph for the parasitic drug testing industry

Lowlife ticks and leeches, damn them all to hell

[MojoXN]

22. It could be worse...

I just read somewhere that companies have started testing for nicotine. Nicotine! Their justification is that they are the ones paying for your health care, thus they won't pay, or employ you, if you make an unhealthy life decision. What's next? A ban on fast food? Jesus Christ, the nanny state thing gas gone a little overboard here.

MojoXN

[Nay]

23. A small correction, Mojo. That's not the nanny state doing that, it's

the free-market-loving companies doing that. And the insurance companies that provide companies' insurance. So it is, in effect, the free market that is pushing the drug testing and the drug war, not any nanny state.

[MojoXN]

27. I humbly stand corrected.

[SmokingJacket]

24. They'd like you to think that.

Drug tests are legally required for only a small portion of jobs.

But lots and LOTS of companies do it anyway. I don't know what they think they're gaining, except the power to humiliate employees by making them pee in a bottle. Maybe that's enough.

I've never touched an illegal drug in my life, but there's no FUCKING way I'm peeing in a bottle for anyone who doesn't have a medical degree.

[WyLoochka]

25. As stated above a couple times

The companies that opt into "Drug Free Workplaces" pay lower Work Comp premiums. The insurance companies mandate the testing in order for a company to secure the lower rates.

[radwriter0555]

26. Only if the company has employee rules that decree it so, upon employment.

Especially Union rules, typically with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) type situation.

But it's not a LAW per se.