I don’t see how it’s any more realistic than “a worker who needs money to (make his next car payment/buy his fiancee an engagement ring/take a trip to Maui) figures he could sell company secrets.” Sure, it’s possible, but the actual problem is unrelated to drugs.
I specifically mentioned underage drinking and smoking because they are illegal. The specific laws may vary, but generally if a minor has cigarettes or beer in his hand, at least one crime was committed to put it there.
The minor depends on someone to supply him with nicotine or alcohol–a crooked clerk, an older friend, or a stranger walking into a convenience store–and if he’s addicted, he has a habit to support (which has nothing to do with legality).
Well, I don’t want to worry about an employee not being able to work for several months because she has to support a child, or stealing from work to support the child, and that’s a helluva lot more concrete. Pregnant employees will take maternity leave in nearly all instances, and they’re going to need a lot of money to raise that kid. But going from “Jones smoked pot sometime in the past 45 days” to “Jones is going to raid the cash register” is a HUGE leap.
If an employee shows up late or hung over, fire him. What’s the problem?
Sorry. I was thinking in terms of adult employees.
The fact that an employee has committed a crime is largely irrelevant to an employer unless that crime would have an effect on their job. For example, an employee who was convicted of murder or rape may be a danger to others, an employee with a large number of moving violations may not be suited to a position driving a delivery van, and a employee convicted of fraud may not be desireable in a position where they are entrusted with proprietary client secrets.
Smoking, under age or not, generally does not effect job performance, unless your job is very phisical.
So based on this, why would you hire someone who uses drugs?
The problem is that an employer isn’t able to follow Jones around in his personal life. An employer doesn’t know if Jones is an occasional user or he has a severe problem.
Yes, employees steal for a variety of reasons. However, many drugs are highly addictive and addicted people don’t always behave rationally or in their best interests.
Benny Hinn figures are not generally mind and behavior altering or addictive.
The problem is that it is expensive to fire and hire new employees. If I can screen out bad employees before I hire them, I’m better off in the long run. If you are choosing between two identical job candidates, would you hire the one who tests positive for crack and PCP or the one who is clean?
The government legislates a few reasons based on public policy for which employers cannot discriminate. Other than that employers are free to discriminate on whatever reasons they want. They can demand that you don’t fly on airplanes or that you don’t drink orange juice and you are free to accept the job or go elsewhere. They do not owe you a job any more than you owe them your labor. Why do people think they are entitled to a job under conditions of their own choosing? If you want to define your job you should go into business for yourself.
By your own ascertations, an underage smoker or drinker is a branded criminal and obviously not fit for positions that would require adhearence to the law. We have to be sure and hold ones mistakes against them above and beyond the justice system and punish them in the private sector too. Probably should just go ahead and keep 'em in prison and let them pick up trash huh? If we are going there then we need to make everyones complete background available from CEO to the pit floor and distribute punishment equally. Gonna be alot of rich corporate execs out of a job.
Are you saying that hobbies can’t become addictive or obsessive? They can and do. Check this out;
So the petty criminal is harshly penalized for his theft of $35 bucks while the fat cats take the money and run. If you want to make this a case about criminality you should look at the whole of criminals, not just those nasty drug users. How about those nasty millionaire cheats? Do ya think the Andersen bunch should be relegated to sweeping the floor for the rest of their days or could they have something to offer despite being wealthy criminals? You think someone might give those nasty criminals a job?
I laughed at this until my ribs hurt !!! This is a problem? You must be joking !! I guess you are right though, if they were able, they would follow you around all the time, telling you to just say “no”, helping you unzip your pants when you’re too drunk to do it yourself. Hey !! I know~!! For every person you hire, hire a second person to follow him around and make sure he makes all the right choices for your company in his personal life. Oh my. Who is going to watch the watcher?
I am begining to think you don’t know any drug users and if you do you are oblivious to it. You definitely don’t know any real religious fanatics.
See this a problem. How did you get to know this before hand? We know the answer but you make big sacrifices getting there.
Here’s a nice; totally unbiased opinion
I got a lot more, if you want 'em.
And sailor, we’re argueing an employers right to (or wisdom of) interference in an employees private life. We’re not argueing that employers right to terminate or select an employee. I got fired once (the only time) because my boss got a hessy that I didn’t care much about baseball. I figured I was well out of there.
Peace,
mangeorge
>> And sailor, we’re argueing an employers right to (or wisdom of) interference in an employees private life. We’re not argueing that employers right to terminate or select an employee.
Right and wisdom are two different things. Excepting the exceptions provided in the law, he has the right to discriminate as much as he wants even based on private life. He can say “to be employed here you are required to sign an agreement to never drink orange juice anywhere, at any time, and if you drink some we will fire you”. Whether that is wise or not is a whole different question.
In effect, we are talking about the right to hire and fire.
Jack, I was just responding to mangeorge when he said we were talking about the right of an employer to interfere in an employees private life and not about the employer’s right to hire and fire. My point is that they are the same thing. If the employer has the right to hire you or not depending on any particular reason then he effectively has control of that aspect because he can just fire you unless you agree to that condition.
On whether it is wise or reasonable for employers to do want employees who do not use drugs I really cannot say with certainty but I guess if the cost of screening is low I would prefer employees who were drug free as on the whole I would assume they are more productive. I would also want them not to drink or smoke and to be married as this has shown to be correlated with responsibility. Of course you can still get bad employees like this but you are just diminishing your chances. Whether it is cost-effective I don’t know.
One thing is for sure: you are not going to raise your productivity if you hire a guy who is a drug addict and an alcoholic.
Ok, but how far are you willing to take that logic. I’m sure you could find demographic studies that prove that jazz fans are statistically less productive, or that Viet Nam vets are more prone to psychotic rage, or that left hand people are more flighty, etc. …
Sooner or later one of your very own vices, or even mere traits, might be hit upon.
Unearthing dirt on people to rationalize their lack of worth is a bit unethical, in my book. By your rationale (taken to its extreme), you could make a totally uninformed, biased opinion on somebody’s worth, and then find some little flaw in their personal life to justify your decision. That stinks.
It’s a matter of “give an inch and they’ll take a mile.” If I’m going to be subjected to tests to determine whether or not I smoked a joint last weekend, then what’s to stop them from searching my computer files to determine how much porn I surf, because Buddha knows you wouldn’t want a stinkin’ degenerate working for you either.
I mentioned the illegality of underage drinking in response to the claims that have been brought up on this thread and previous ones: that you can’t trust someone who has broken the law, and that testing for drug use is different from testing for marriage or smoking because drugs are illegal.
Suggesting that drug users are likely to steal from work is a stretched analogy in itself, or do you have a cite?
Keep in mind that just as some drugs are very addictive, others have almost no potential for addiction. Sex, gambling, chocolate, and exercise can be addictive in exactly the same way as LSD or mushrooms. That is, they are psychologically addictive–you have fun and you probably want to do it again–but not physically addictive. (Actually, chocolate addiction has a physical element.)
Personally, I would be more concerned that an employee who goes to the casino every weekend is going to steal from me, than an employee who smokes a joint or drops acid every weekend.
The same reason I would hire someone who gambles or is married - what matters is how well he does his job.
If you are choosing between two identical job candidates, would you hire the one who is black or the one who is white?
I would look for another distinguishing characteristic, or if that fails, draw a name from a hat. Ideally it wouldn’t even come up, because I wouldn’t subject them to a drug test in the first place.
Note: Crack cocaine (the kind you buy from a guy in a trench coat on the corner) and “regular” cocaine (the kind Wall Street bankers snort through hundred-dollar bills) are the same as far as drug tests are concerned, and in most other aspects as well. And a “clean” test result doesn’t tell you much - would you rather hire someone who smoked pot three weeks ago and failed the test, or shot up heroin 12 hours ago and passed?
Though I would test clean, given the choice I would prefer to work for a company that has respect for my privacy. I think there are a lot of people out there like myself and companies that have unthinkingly imposed policies that show no respect for individual autonomy or dignity will suffer for their decisions.
I have heard many anecdotal reports, including some first hand, of job applicants being told they had to have a drug test but explicitly told they could have time to get clean first. I suppose in some twisted way applying the policy this way would weed out the worst of addicts who can’t get clean for even a short period but realistically the interview process should spot such people anyway. On the other hand it begins the employment relationship with the clear indication that senior management are idiots who aren’t in control of the ship.
There has been lots of talk on this thread from those who support drug testing that it just makes sense that certain assumptions are correct. The truth is that few cost benefit studies have been done to back up these common sense assumptions. Those that I have seen demonstrate that random testing, as opposed to pre-employment testing, can lower drug use but even then make an undemonstrated leap to employer benefit.
On the other hand, this article discusses a number of studies that seem to demonstrate no benefit whatsoever. One study of silicon valley companies suggests that companies that use drug testing have considerably lower productivity than those who do not.
Jack, again, there are two separate aspects: wisdom and legality.
Is it wise to discriminate on the basis of drug use? I don’t know and I do not need to know as I am not hiring anyone. It could be that it could be beneficial if productivity is lower among drug users and it could be prejudicial if you are turning away good candidates. (Like, if you are hiring a musician for a young rap group you might find that by insisting on no drugs you have to turn a few good candidates away)
Now, should it be legal? My answer is 100% yes. Business owners should be allowed to run their businesses any way they see fit and make their own mistakes. The government telling me who I should hire is a bad idea. (The exceptions are based on broad public policy where allowing discrimination wouuld be very prejudicial to society as a whole.) If a business owner wants to discriminate on the basis of jazz taste, that’s fine by me and he should not be legally prevented of doing so.
I hate to say it, but most of those ‘myths’ were, in my case, facts.
I have worked in shops that had quite a few drug users. As a group, they were late more, took more sick days, made more errors, and cost the company quite a bit through theft.
Of course, that could be because I was a part of that group…
I will admit that all drug users are not the amoral theives that some would assume, but the stereotype is not completely without foundation.
I work for a company that has different drug testing standards based on location.
The company is headquartered in Massachusetts. In general, drug testing isn’t de rigeur in this area, and we don’t drug test here.
At our call center and manufacturing facility in Columbia, SC, we drug test. The reason is that all of the other employers in the city test, and the tests are actually subsidized by the state. The reason behind it is that we don’t want a reputation as the only employer in the area that doesn’t test. I suppose that there is a fear that we would end up with a large percentage of drug abusers as employees, which I believe would negatively impact productivity.
I have denied employment to several people because of a positive drug test. The thing is, the test just comes back to the employer (in our case anyway) as positive or negative. There is no distinction between type of substance, or even concentration. I have no way of knowing whether the person is a habitual coke addict, or an occasional pot smoker.
In any case, in a location where everyone knows they will be required to take a drug test as a condition of employment, they would have to be either really stupid or unable to control themselves to continue to use drugs while looking for a job. If you sometimes use drugs, and are actively searching for a job, why not just stop using for a while?
In my opinion, drug use when you know it could keep you from getting a job shows poor judgement. I don’t fault someone for smoking some pot (or doing anything else for that matter - to each his own), but I know I wouldn’t smoke within a week of interviewing for a job.
I’m sorry, Morgainelf, but you have left yourself open to a snide comment, and I would be remiss if I did not point it out.
Oh, I see. And I suppose that if all the other employers in Columbia, SC jumped off a bridge, your company would, too? Young entity, “everyone else was doing it” is NOT an acceptable excuse in THIS country.
You’re confined to litigation until the next pro-business administration comes into office. Looks at watch. Okay, you’re un-litigated. Be sure to send a contribution to my PAC.
Here’s something to consider. According to the Department of Justice, about one in four Americans has tried illegal drugs. In 1999, over half (55%) of all high school seniors tried illegal drugs.
I’ll tell you what. How 'bout I, as an employer, decide that I need to screen my prospective twenty-one year old employees. I’ve got a test that beats your punk-ass whiz quiz hands down. I’ll ask all my 21 y.o. kids who reached senior year of HS one simple question:
“Have you ever tried illegal drugs?”
If the answer is “no,” I’m not gonna hire 'em, because there is a better than fifty percent chance that the person isn’t telling the truth. Plus, in this day and age someone who has the nads to admit to their past drug abuse is showing a flavor of character which I’ll warrant is sorely lacking in all vintages of urine.
What’s the problem? I’m just testing people for “trustworthiness,” ostensibly based on the Department of Justice’s own ironclad figures, but in fact drawing arbitrary pseudoscientific conclusions to suit my own personal beliefs.
Here’s a goody for ya, sailor et al; yeah, the poppy seed thing again
I tested positive a couple years ago. No problem, all I had to was go tell the company “doctor” what I’d had eaten within the last few days (lemon poppy seed cake). It ain’t none of the freakin’ company’s freakin business what I eat.
And how do you like the ‘fix’ for a faulty system? Same thing the doc advised me to do. “Don’t eat any poppy seeds.”
What if I was a junkie and said yes, I ate the fordidden seed?
The whole system annoy’s me, and so does the attitude that an employer has any business meddling in any part of my life that doesn’t affect my job.
Suck’s
Peace,
mangeorge
All drug testing amounts to, is legalized discrimination.
Isn’t it true, statistically, that a black person is more likely to commit a crime than a white person? Aren’t religious people more likely to be honest employees? Couldn’t you argue that people with a certain astrological sign are more likely to behave a certain way?
I thought we already figured out in this country that employers aren’t supposed to be discriminating in this way… granted, a person has no ability to change his gender or skin color, but we can certainly choose our own religion, favorite sports team, and what hobbies we partake in on weekends.
To assume that a person who uses drugs will be a bad employee, requires the same logic as thinking that the blonde, big-breasted applicant will be promiscuous, and thus cause trouble in the workplace.
It’s gotta be one way or the other… you can discriminate agains drugs, religion, sports, skiing… or none of it at all.
P.S. I do agree with what Morgainelf said; the current practice of pre-employment drug testing only amounts to a stupidity test. When I worked at Best Buy, there was a strong drug culture there, among at least half the employees, and I never saw any special problems because of it.
I work for the state, working with developmentally disabled people. They test for drugs before hiring. Part of me resented the intrusion, but part of me understood why they had to do it.
One time, they found a joint at the workplace. I had to be drug tested, along with everyone else. (They never did nab the guy, though - but most of us knew who it was.) Should they have drug tested us? I mean, isn’t that unfair?
I’d like to know - do the rest of you think that jobs such as mine (taking care of developmentally disabled people) should require drug testing? And if so, why? If not, why?
Shouldn’t the employer trust their employees? And which jobs should have drug testing, and which jobs shouldn’t? Is drug testing ever justified, or do you need to wait until you find a joint at work before you drug test? And why should innocent people (like me, who has never taken drugs) be tested? Why can’t they just trust me? Golly, people are so untrusting… :rolleyes:
yosemitebabe, the only time I’ve ever been drug tested was when I was applying for a job as a residential counselor in a DD group home. I passed the test and got the job.
At the time I didn’t object. I was opposed to drug testing even then, but I thought that this was one of those types of jobs where drug testing was appropriate. I have since reconsidered.
Drugs testing, as others have noted, presents no effective bar to a drug user - even a pretty chronic one - from using drugs. Depending on the drug of choice, the way to beat it (ignoring actual cheats, like using someone else’s urine, etc.) is to abstain for some period before taking the test. It doesn’t work - it didn’t make the two austistic guys I was looking out for any safer - lord knows I could probably have gotten stoned or high every night I was on the job.
What it may have led to was a sense of complacency by my bosses: “Well, Sua passed his drug test, so no need for late night drop-ins to make sure he’s doing his job.”
Morgainelf’s point about the drug test really being a test for poor judgment is, IMO, invalid. It may simply demonstrate ignorance about medical facts not relevant to the job (“pot stays in my system for weeks? I had no idea.”) In any event, poor judgment can be determined, probably much more effectively, by simply interviewing the schmoe and asking the right questions.
yosemitebabe, the only time I’ve ever been drug tested was when I was applying for a job as a residential counselor in a DD group home. I passed the test and got the job.
At the time I didn’t object. I was opposed to drug testing even then, but I thought that this was one of those types of jobs where drug testing was appropriate. I have since reconsidered.
Drugs testing, as others have noted, presents no effective bar to a drug user - even a pretty chronic one - from using drugs. Depending on the drug of choice, the way to beat it (ignoring actual cheats, like using someone else’s urine, etc.) is to abstain for some period before taking the test. It doesn’t work - it didn’t make the two austistic guys I was looking out for any safer - lord knows I could probably have gotten stoned or high every night I was on the job.
What it may have led to was a sense of complacency by my bosses: “Well, Sua passed his drug test, so no need for late night drop-ins to make sure he’s doing his job.”
Morgainelf’s point about the drug test really being a test for poor judgment is, IMO, invalid. It may simply demonstrate ignorance about medical facts not relevant to the job (“pot stays in my system for weeks? I had no idea.”) In any event, poor judgment can be determined, probably much more effectively, by simply interviewing the schmoe and asking the right questions.
