A Random Drug Test Tale, or A Worker Loses His Gruntle

The BBQ Pit
161

Y’know, there is such a lot of absolute feckin’ bollocks being talked about in terms of employers trying to prevent accidents, even the testing companies themselves state that exceptt in safety critical industries, such as flight crew, or other transport modes, there is no solid evidence that testing actually does prevent accidents - or that drug taking is a significant factor in accident rates.

So why does WalMart test its employees ?

Thre are far more serious issues that are a safety risk, human error and simply lack of training are still the main causes of accidents and resources directed at drug testing would be far better placed elswhere.

In other words, for the absolute vast majority of workers at every level within a company, testing is irrelevant.

When I see athletes tested with recognised procedures and formalities, the basis for appeal has often been the ‘chain of custody’, which is another way of the athlete saying that security procedures were lax enough for them to have reasonable grounds for saying the postive sample tested was not theirs.This has been a succesful means of appeal for several athletes.

It took the doping industry quite some time to develop a provable, legal, reliable way of ensuring that samples being tested actually came from the source written on the label.
Given that athletics is such a high profile industry, you’d think that was the first thing they got right.

There are plenty of such drug testing companies out there, and many are not capable of accounting correctly for the samples they have, and commercial pressure ensures that those who can do the job at the lowest cost will get the testing contract - this is not the way to ensure the security and quality required.

The whole arsehole argument that ‘if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve nothing to worry about’ is utterly specious.
If you do nothing wrong and are tested without just cause you do have something to worry about - your fredom, your privacy.

Drug testing has become an industry that has every incentive to infringe your rights, it is in fact built solely upon doing this.

Here’s your link,

http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/PM/Articles/NegativeResultForWork.htm

http://www.management-issues.com/display_page.asp?section=research&id=1371

Don’t forget there are such things as false postives too,

http://www.management-issues.com/display_page.asp?section=research&id=1371
…and when those false postives occur, the cost of compensation may well outwiegh the percieved advantages of testing.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11788536&BRD=2259&PAG=461&dept_id=455154&rfi=6

162

Hey, your employer should have a right to see what’s in your piss, right? And why stop there folks? Let’s start some invasive home searching too. As long as they are peering at your bodily fluids they might as well be checking out your car, your house, your neighbors and associates. Lets do full background checks on everyone both before they are hired and periodically throughout their employment. Soon we’ll be living with Big Brother sitting right at your side, won’t that be fun? :rolleyes:

163

To add one to your list:
[ul][li]Speed, cocaine and a few other drugs metabolise and are excreted at an extremly high rate. Drug tests administered outside of a certain timeframe will generally not show traces of cocaine. Drug tests will therefore bias against drugs with a long half-life, such as pot.[/li][/ul]

From Cocaine Toxicity: Practice Essentials, Background, Pathophysiology

[QUOTE}
"… the half-life of cocaine is approximately 40 minutes… "
[/QUOTE]

164

This reminds me of the June 10, 1991 Dilbert strip:

Evil Boss: Starting today, the company will begin random drug testing. Although it would be illegal to search your car or home for illegal drugs, we have found no ethical problem with sucking the blood out of your body. Results will be posted in the cafeteria.

165

While my post was sarcastic I really do question the minds of people that have no problem with a piss test but would flip out if someone asked to search their homes. What is more invasive that close scrutiny of your bodily fluids? There’s always the old logic of “If you’ve got nothing to hide then you shouldn’t have a problem pissing in a cup” which always makes me cringe too. If I have to explain why that isn’t a good way to approach these kinds of things then you need more help than I can provide.

166

Don’t know if this will help or not, but prior to other dopers in this thread turning me to the “darkside” on this issue :D, my MAIN support of it was a vague cranky feeling of “THEY (those that smoke dope) can’t tell me what to do, If I don’t want dopers working for my [so far nonexistant] company, then I don’t HAVE to hire them by golly”.

That was my only reason for supporting it previously, that and the fact that I’ve been giving my blood and pee for some 25 years now. Most of those pee tests were not UAs, but were part of the industry standard regarding worker safety (making sure we weren’t picking up any heavy metals from our work environment). And so it just seemed a normal part of my career, and got us out of work on an extended coffee break (more if you could say “I don’t have to go yet” ) to boot. :smiley:

Now that I’ve listened to a few dopers complain about it. I realize that my support of it was REALLY more the “I am not going to have any slow, nonproductive idiots working for my [currently non existant] company”. And I’ve come to realize that if I DID manage to let such a non productive slow working idiot slip past the hiring phase, I wouldn’t have to pee test them to fire them for their incompetance, I could fire them for their incompetance alone.

Lastly, and again, having read alll the complaints here, are the pee tests for safety reasons, like pilots and so on. It would be nice to know that these types of people weren’t lighting up. But I don’t think that is going to prevent accidents. Stupidity and incompetance can come in sober packages as well as non-sober ones.

Sorry, I probably didn’t answer your question, or curiousity very well.