Impairment testing works, testing for substances in urine doesn’t.
But drug testing is more politically expedient. So preventable accidents happen, resulting in death and injury. And property damage, BTW.
An opinion;
http://www.drugsense.org/jnr/URINETST.HTM
And a couple devices;
http://www.bowles-langley.com/Files/Industrial.html
http://www.pmifit.com/details2000.htm
Anyone disagree? Managers?
Peace,
mangeorge
from your OP, tho’ you don’t mention it specifically, you seem to be focused on work place related testing, correct?
rather than, say, prisoner related?
Of course, you also need to understand that in some cases, the employer is interested not only in current level of impairment, but in if the person does use illegal substances (prison guards, LEO’s come to mind).
Yes, work related. Thanks.
Such testing is restricted to ‘safety sensitive’ positions at my job.
Peace,
mangeorge
I would say this is the case in virtually all cases. There may be some belief that urine testing is sometimes appropriate for safety issues but it isn’t really backed up by any data.
I’d want some back up on that (re: employers more interested in off work illegal drug taking vs. safety). My understanding is that employers get a break in workers’ comp rates for having ‘drug free workplace/employee testing’. $$ talks.
Undoubtedly true wring, but do they get the discount because there is a demonstrable increase in safety or because workers compensation was enlisted in the war on drugs.
Hit the button too soon.
Obviously my contentions are debatable and I did say that some employers may institute testing in the belief that it will improve safety but I think that belief is largely the result of advocacy by those with an abolitionist agenda. Here is an ACLU paper that outlines the history of drug testing and discusses the issue of whether it increases workplace safety by any measurable amount.
Oh, I’m not necessarily convinced that such policies really make a safer work place (tho’ I do have a bunch of anecdotal stories about clients who’d worked in the factories, wasted on cocaine and booze, got injured and believed they were owed a living for perpetuity).
However, I’m not at all convinced that some HR manager is sitting back in his office thinking ‘yea, I’ll get drug testing in here, then, Pinky, I’ll be able to get rid of all those nasty hop heads’. From what I’ve seen in the market place, it’s a bottom line issue for them, “I can save 3% on my workers comp bill?” (parenthetically speaking, I just got my worker’s comp bill for my itty bitty office - one full time, 2 part time staff, $800 for the year :eek: )
In that case, I suggest that worker’s comp rates should be affected by impairment testing, not “past use” testing.
I think this is key. Left to their own devices, how many employers would subject their employees to testing? They do it because the govt is bribing them to do it, as part of its idiotic war on drugs.
Hazel worker’s comp insurance (tho often required by law/government) is (at least often) private insurance companies, so the ‘bribe’ as it were is coming from the insurance companies.
Wring , then I guess it’s a case of someone (businesses, insurers, govt officials, maybe all three) wanting to be seen to be “doing something” about something?
I seem to remember reading that the fed govt had ordered businesses to “take steps” to see to it that their workplaces were “drug free,” and that the easiest way for businesses to fullfill this requirement was via a drug testing program. Anyone know if this is true?
yea, I think it ** is ** similar to ‘appearance to be doing someting more important than actually doing something’. Kinda like my theory that it’s political suicide to be seen as anything **other ** than being ‘tough on crime’ (which translates into increasing sentences, as if the amount of potential time in prison is the main deterence ‘yea, I’d have robbed that store, but they just upped the sentence from 10 years in prison to 15 years’).
All of which, however, is straying away from the OP (sorry 'bout that).
Part of the problem with coming up with data on ‘influence’ vs. presence, is that to determine what level of a drug is connected w/impairment, one has to do tests w/folks, um, consuming the drug. and if the drug in question is a controlled substance, well…
and “impairment” as used here, is linked to a certain level, right? in the greater sense of ‘impairment’, cough syrup, certain OTC’s can ‘impair’ your judgement and make it riskier for some one to operate machinery etc.
Actually, I think with alcohol data we can see that any level has some level of change in motor skills coordination, judgement etc. I think it’s difficult to argue that a drug interacting with the central nervous system wouldn’t have an influence on level of coordination etc. (tho w/the mj, it’s also difficult to argue that the joint you smoked 2 weeks ago is having any current effect on your system).
If I recall my drug levels data correctly, most stuff becomes undetectable after about 48 hours (mj being the biggest exception), and some stuff (cocaine IIRC) can be undetectable quite quickly (ie 8 hours or so).
So, what is the solution? I’m not certain that I want to dissallow from working anyone who’s taken anything that might remotely alter their judgement and motor skills (after all, that doughnut you just ate has a lot of sugar in it…). But, OTOH, I’m also quite certain I don’t want to go back to the situation we had in the 80’s (where - anecdote alert - many of the local car factories were having serious problems w/folks coming to work drunk/ high, selling and using drugs on the premises etc. - it kept the local substance abuse in patient program full for the decade)
would be happy to hear a happy medium (especially now since Miss Cleo wouldn’t be able to apply for the position)
It might be past time to reexamine the type of “readiness for work” testing that is done. If so, I think that wring has put his finger on the key. Convince the insurance companies to offer reduced rates for a different type of testing.
After all, it was the insurance companies offering of lower rates for fire protection that utimately led to municipal fire departments.
That, and convince;
These folks
Workplace safety isn’t really the issue. The abolutionist faction will do just about anything to show some (however little) progress in their agenda.
Witness D.A.R.E.
Peace,
mangeorge
Pretend like I typed ‘abolitionist’ faction, ok.
mangeorge
Interesting debate. I feel it is a definate invasion of my privacy that I can lose my job for something I do in my offtime. I smoke a joint in the evening and go to work the next day, I am not impaired. Yet I could lose my job, why? Because someone doesn’t personally like me so he reports me, and they test me and I come back positive! legal, yes. Right? Hell no!
Is this government sponsored? Well it all started back in the 80’s with the military, so I would guess that yes, it is government sponsored.
Just for the record, Mondeo, the reason for the drug testing in the military is that drug use became an epidemic and destroyed the morale and readiness of the Armed Forces during and after Vietnam.
If you want to do drugs, fine. I have no problem with that. But you do them in the military and I’ll have your ass, because you are ALWAYS on call, and you risk my life as well as yours if you do something stupid while you’re high. I don’t care if you’re a General, I’ll get in your ass.
OK, sorry about that. My knee is feeling kinda twitchy right now. Carry on as if I had never said anything.
-Dave
Well, Airman Doors, USAF, just for the record.
I was in the military (USN) during Vietnam, and for three years of my four I was schlepping Marines (love them guys) around from one battle to the next.
Let me tell you straight. Drugs did not “destroyed the morale and readiness of the Armed Forces during and after Vietnam.”. Hampered? Sure, somewhat. But the war was lost due to other stuff, which is another topic. A much debated topic.
That being said, I’ll probably agree with you that drugs have no place in the military, especially in peacetime. Although that can also be debated.
But I don’t have to deal with that. Not directly, anyway. 
What I’m trying to do here is make some sense of the wasteful policy of ‘past use’ testing in the workplace, and propose that impairment testing may actually save some lives.
I am on your side, Dave.
Peace,
mangeorge
If workplace safety was not the issue, there would not be drug testing in any workplace. A corporation takes on the risk of each employee’s actions while at work and each comapny has a right to minimize these risks by having the appropriate employees on the job. The question is how do corporations go about doing this? I think urine testing does not take into consideration the employees’s privacy rights. Better would be some form of impairment testing.