I think the issues is that you think that they are making assumptions. They aren’t. It’s just a standard procedure. They aren’t assuming that YOU are doing drugs, they are just assuming that SOMEONE is doing drugs, and that is certainly true. And someone who is unable to NOT do drugs while they are trying to find a job is probably also going to be unable to NOT do drugs while they are working. And if you’re high on the job, you going to make mistakes. From messing up an order or an invoice to hurting or killing someone. So it’s just easier to test EVERYONE to weed out that 5% or so of applicants who don’t care enough about their well being or safety to NOT smoke weed for a month.
As for coercive, well sure. Being employed is kind of like that. I HAVE to be at work at 7am. I hate it, but it’s my shift. I can tell them to go screw themselves, and take a moral stand on their forcing me to wake up early, but they will fire me. All part of growing up and being part of the grown up world.
I have turned down jobs that required drug tests for the simple reason that I don’t want to have my privacy invaded like that. That means that someone else, someone who is willing to allow that invasion, will get the job and might even be paid more for it because of less competition. Good for them. I personally think that employers who use drug tests, polygraphs, dousing, palm reading and/or tarot cards are just being lazy. They just want to know if a candidate is willing submit to the process, whatever the process may be. That is their right. It’s my right to not work at a job where they focus on what I do in my own time.
I’m pretty sure that employers wouldn’t be paying for the tests if they didn’t think there was a need.
I’ve only had two drug tests and both came as part of a pre-hire physical that also included a lung x-ray. They also had medical survey questions about chronic pre-existing conditions, which I signed right under the little warning about fraud.
If you’re going to be added to their insurance plan, they’re going to do the testing and paperwork necessary to keep the group qualified for lower rates.
Some work environments have an increased risk to injury. People who work in these fields have the Freedom to work without the risk of some idiot partaking in a mind altering substance (prescribed or not) and unable to perform their job safely for himself and other around him.
Of course, the trouble with that argument is that you can test positive for marijuana without ever being under the influence at work, and conversely you can get drunk on your lunch break every day without it showing up on a drug screen.
It’s about time for pot heads to stop whining and engage in some serious efforts to change the system if they don’t like it. That’s what black people did. That’s what gay people did. On a lesser level, that is what pro-gun people did.
I’m actually on your side and most of the time your idea of activism leaves me shaking my head and mumbling about “fucking stoners.” First hint: quit trying to piggyback your desire to freely get high on the plight of the terminally ill.
I knew some guys who drove trucks for a beer distributor. They had to take drug tests (required for truck drivers) but they delivered a product that was mind altering, proven to cause acidents and yet was never tested for. If the idea was to prevent acidents while driving then they would have tested for alcohol.
Well, y’see, if you object to drug testing, that must mean you have something to hide. That would make you an eeeevul druggie, not a Real American™.
As a more practical matter, if you are a politician, you generally don’t want your opponent to be able to say you are for people using illegal drugs. Passing laws against drug testing for employment creates just such an opportunity for any prospective opponents.
Employers who have a policy of testing for drugs can give this policy nice names like “Drug-Free Workplace”. See, it’s got “free” in the name, how can it be a violation of anybody’s freedom?
You missed my point, which has since been elaborated upon by other posters. FTR, I’ve never done anything more illegal than drink underage, which they don’t test for anyway.
It’s not PASSING a drug test that’s the problem, it’s the point at which when so many employers require drug tests, the concept of “consent to a drug test” is a fiction. Sure, you have the right to say no and walk away from all the jobs that require them, and then go live in a cardboard box. If you want to be employed, you have to pee in a cup. (I’d be interested in knowing how Bricker’s 3/4 of employers requiring them breaks down by type of employment. Entry level jobs? Middle management? How many CEOs get hired and get told “OK, go fill this up and we’ll finish the paperwork.”) OK, well, it appears there are a number of posters here who don’t have a problem with that. Where’s the “unreasonable” line for those who’d give a pee sample? Would you give a blood sample? Hair sample? Stool sample? Rectal search? Would you let the employer send somebody to your house to search for drug paraphernalia, just in case you’re one of those people who are smart enough to stop smoking for a month, but didn’t toss your bong? Why not, it’s reeeeeeally important that you don’t use drugs on this job. At least as important as showing up for work on time.
Part of the reason the drug tests bother me (aside from the presumption of guilt, “if you don’t like the idea, what are you hiding?” attitude behind them) is that they are subject to errors. Specifically, false positives. I think a lot of people have seen the Mythbusters episode where they ate poppy seed bagels and then tested positive for opiates on the very kinds of drug-testing pee-on-a-sticks that employers use. That could lose somebody a job. Worse, if that kind of information is kept on file, the fact that you failed a drug test could pop up somewhere else in the future.
Freedom is a complex buzzword here in America. When the people who scream about freedom the loudest do so, for the most part what they mean is freedom from government social safety nets and freedom from the government forcing egalitarian social policy on a recalcitrant public.
Corporations are fairly free to do whatever they want to people since they are not ‘government’.
Yeah it sucks that so many drugs are illegal, especially when the reasons seem to be more politically motivated as opposed to The Nanny being concerned about our personal well-being. But them’s the facts. How’s that work? Well pretty much ever since Lincoln, and especially since someone blew up some atoms, we haven’t really been the Land of the Free (Home of the Brave, try to keep up OP) any more than the old German republic was actually democratic.
As one old stoner once said, "Freedom’s just another word for “nothing left to lose.” And the USA has so much more to lose now than we did 200 years ago. So we have proportinally less freedom. Still, there are worse places to live. All you gotta do is pee in a cup sometimes.
I think it becomes problematic that the “freedom” of the employer is used for something that in no way relates to the job in a direct way.
You can engage in plenty of illegal activities and be fine on your job. You could be a mass murderer, but a very good programmer. You could smoke weed on the weekend and be fine at work. If you are off your face and doing a great job, then the state of your body and mind is nobody’s business.*
If there is something wrong with the way you do your JOB then of course your employer is free to fire you (usually after some warning, though I don’t about the US). That’s why you need to show up at 7 and you can’t complain it’s coercive: it is necessary to do your job well. If being sober is not necessary to do your job well then it’s nobody’s business.
Of course employers have freedoms to do all manner of things, but I’m sure most people want to draw certain lines, somewhere. If the majority of employers started asking you to have sex with them before they give you a job (also unrelated to how you might do your job) we might complain, and we probably wouldn’t say “'well, you could just apply elsewhere if you don’t like it”. We might complain if they requested to know the colour of your nipples or if you believe in homeopathy.
I also don’t really see the benefit of employers having the “freedom” to control your life outside work. Other posters mentioned employees not performing well when intoxicated, but there is already a mechanism in place for dealing with employers who don’t perform well: you ask them to improve and if they don’t you fire them.
Employers have plenty of freedom with their right to fire you if you don’t do the job they hired you to do. Your personal life, criminal, crazy, kinky, lazy or otherwise should not be their business.
*ETA: I had an absolutely excellent, yet consistently wasted, chemistry teacher. He was a mean bastard, but he was widely recognised to be the best chemistry teacher the school had. His class consistently scored among the highest in country in the final exams. He kept a bottle of jenever in his desk.
Companies must have some financial incentive to test their employees for drugs. I’m sure there are a few exceptions, but in general, I don’t think they really give a shit what you do in your free time. It must be an attempt to avoid lawsuits, or reduce their insurance rates, or something. They certainly wouldn’t be spending the money on it if they didn’t think it was worth it. Anyone know what the reason is?
I think that it mostly comes down to worker’s comp. insurance rates, as was stated by a few. The main reason most employers choose to test is financial, nothing more. It would be hard to prove to an employer that you personally would be more of a benefit to the company than the per person savings on comp. and health insurance. That being said, I can’t stand the fact that I could be fired for something I did three weeks ago on a Saturday, while the guy next to or above me with something life threateningly heavy and an incredible hangover is able to operate with impunity.
Okay, that is unsurprising. And obviously there is some actual statistical justification for the insurance companies to provide a discount to employers who perform drug testing - they are not in the business of charging less money for no reason. Clearly drug-using employees cost society money in some fashion (perhaps in the form of increased injuries at work), and employee drug testing reduces this cost enough to make up for the cost of testing itself (by excluding drug users from the workplace).
So, for all you people who are unhappy with the idea of employee drug testing and think it should be banned, or whatever - who should pay this cost you are seeking to impose on society?
Should all employees pay for it, in the form of a lower salary? Or should consumers pay for it, in the form of higher prices?
You should not be mad at your employer for simply trying to reduce how much money they pay in insurance - you should be mad at the drug users who cause enough problems in the workplace for the insurance companies to notice and offer your employer a discount for not employing them!