My rant on pre-employment drug testing

[RummyTheDummy]

I fully understand the desire of employers to screen out applicants who are drug users. Granted, it's laregly driven by greedy insurance companies who are strong arming their clients, but hey, it's the company that has to pay their premiums so it's their call.

And as an occassional pot smoker (and nothing else) I also understand that my rights to privacy are subject to being invaded by an employer while the raging drunk is rewarded by not having his/her privacy invaded.

However, my issue is with testing procedures. When you go in for a piss, saliva or hair test, you essentially sign over the rights to the specimen to the lab and your prospective employer. You have no legal right whatsoever to learn the results of the test in a timely manner even though it is after all, your hair, piss, saliva and oh yeah, livleyhood.

I have read horror stories of those who have landed job, quit their previous job, and been at work for a week only to find out 'hey your drug screen that you took 2 weeks ago came back positive. You're fired.'

It should be a FEDERAL LAW that prospective employees have EQUAL rights to their results within a reasonable time frame. Prospective employees should have every right to call a lab and an HR dept. and ask for their results w/o the fear of being red flagged as a drug user.

[Birthmark]

1. I've never taken a drug test, and I never will

And, no, I don't use any illegal or prescription drugs at all.

[toymachines]

2. hear hear!

good rant

[LSparkle]

5. I'm with you

You're being hired to do a JOB, not being BOUGHT like a slave (thus the desire of the buyer to "check out the specimen"). Totally and unnecessarily intrusive, IMHO.

[ixion]

3. Drug testing is an invasion of privacy

your working for someone does not entitle them to pry into your private life. Period.

If your work is sub-standard, they can fire you. That's it.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. I've taken lots of drug tests. There's no room for drug use in my field

Couldn't you take one on your own before applying for a prospective job opening, to know you were clean?

[maxsolomon]

7. i assume that also applies to legal drugs?

you cannot take, for instance, vicodin or tylenol 3 if so perscribed?

[TheCowsCameHome]

9. I suppose you'd have to specify that you were on prescribed drugs

before taking the screening.

[maxsolomon]

17. i'm asking about the "in my field" part

is it drug use, or ILLEGAL drug use that there is no room for? i understand if you cannot do your job while high on cannibis, but it is also likely that you could not do it while drunk, or on painkillers, etc. no one should be working while under the influence of a drug, but to allow legal but debilitating drugs to be present in your bloodstream, while firing someone for eating a poppyseed muffin, or smoking a joint a month ago, seems both arbitrary & capricious.

[RummyTheDummy]

12. Yes, you can and I did

I went to two different labs and had self tests done. I also purchased some from Walgreens.

The problem is there are differing cutoff levels for tests. Some companies order a simple immunoassay test that typically has a 50 ng/ml cut off level for THC and confirm a positive result with a GC/MS test that is much more sensitive and more expensive. Others will go straight for the GC/MS test which has a 15 ng/ml cut off for THC. Saliva tests are easy to beat while a hair test is virtually impossible to beat.

I agree, there are some fields i.e. airline pilots, etc., where drug use presents a public safety risk. However, I would argue alcohol abuse is far more common and found in all fields and presents an even great public health/safety risk but nobody tests for that unless there is suspicion of use i.e. you get caught red handed.

On edit: Some states prohibit licensed labs from conducting personal, self tests.

[TheCowsCameHome]

13. Railroads can do random testing for drugs or alcohol at ANY time

without suspicion of use. If you test positive for either, it's 9 months on the street, first offense. I don't know about other similar transportation industries, but likely they are the same.

There's too much at stake to have impaired operators of trains, planes, busses, ships, etc. running loose.

I don't like to be tested, but in some cases it's necessary.

[maxsolomon]

6. IT SHOULD BE A FEDERAL LAW

that no one can be tested for drug use.

but, realistically, no politician is going to vote for any measure that could be spun as "soft on drugs", cannibis included. until, perhaps, they all feel enough cover to vote the same way at the same time to legalize, they will never have the balls to introduce such legislation, let alone vote for it in public.

[Lefty48197]

8. I'll piss in a cup, if they hold it. And I make no promises about my aim

Companies that drug test suck major organ. They are violating people's 4th Amendment rights against illegal search. Why nobody has challenged drug testing on Constitutional grounds, I do not know. I could understand if we're talking about pilots, or bus drivers etc., but for companies like Home Depot to screen out pot smokers is ludicrous.
F*ck the employers, and f*ck the medical insurance companies. We need nationalized health insurance, and private employers should get their asses out of our Doctor's offices.
There's also the inherent racism with regard to the "hair sample" testing procedure. It seems that hair with more melanin (i.e. from African-Americans vs. blond whities like myself) are much more likely to contain traces of drugs, since the residue is stored in the melanin.

[Dogmudgeon]

10. In some fields, the results aren't even looked at

I've taken opioid painkillers for years to control nerve pain from ear operations. I've also been compelled to submit to a number of drug tests, and was never asked if I was taking prescription painkillers.

My urine and/or blood would have been full of metabolites that would scream "contraband", but I was never red-flagged; if I had been, I would have offered my physician's letter of explanation. I never needed it.

In many cases, the drug test is an intimidation ordeal, like polygraphs used to be (yes, I also had a pre-employment polygraph test once, for a retail position!). There are very few jobs that require 100% sobriety, and in those cases, the employers would be wise to screen for psychiatric, sleep, and neurovascular problems, too.

--p!

[DBoon]

11. We have Reagan to thank for this atrocity

He introduced the practice

I couldn't believe it when I stopped by a Jack-in-The-Box for fast food and saw that employment applicants for these miserable fast food jobs had to take a drug test!

[alkaline9]

15. guess they don't want their employees with the munchies hehe

[DBoon]

16. There is *NOTHING* like a breakfast jack

when you are stoned.

I am speaking from experience here.

[bmcatt]

14. I turned down a job over drug testing

Note that I've never done any drugs other than those prescribed by my doctor (and I never went "doctor-shopping" for something :-)). I don't even smoke tobacco.

The job was a high-level management/software development position with a small start-up. The company was hoping (some time far in the future) to sell their product to the DoD and their main staff would need to get security clearances, so they wanted the right to do random drug testing at any time, with no specification as to why or restrictions on the use.

I flat out refused and was then *VERY* cold-shouldered by them, which was rather annoying since they'd flown me out to tender their final offer and have me sign the paperwork. They, at first, wanted to stick me with the cost of changing my flight so I'd be going home a week early.

But I absolutely agree. Unless I'm in a position where my reflexes or eye/hand coordination skills are necessary to preserve life (surgeon, pilot, etc), this shouldn't even be a *question*. Even in those situations, the testing should be functional, not the broad "have you taken any drugs".