Pre-Employment Drug Screening and the Paranoia of False Positives
- Thread starter Snaploud
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I wonder about that too. I also think that drug screenings don't necessarily work. I've come across a couple of people that say they smoke marijuana and bragged about how they've cheated the test.
And when it comes to substances that metabolize quickly, like alcohol, you can hire an alcoholic and never know if you're just going off of the test. I think that's why things like references from former employers and co-workers, etc., may do a bit better in telling how well someone will work out. That's too bad. Luckily, I'd heard that about poppy seeds before I was ever tested, and so I stayed away from poppy seed muffins (mmm
) for a few weeks before I was tested, just to be sure everything would work out okay. Sorry to hear that.
I think those screenings (as well as pre-employment credit checks) are a fucking horrible idea and shouldn't even be legal.
Best of luck to you!
I do wonder about them myself sometimes...
Good info. I wouldn't be surprised either.
Split the difference. Your job has no driving, but your employer had a rule about how many points your employees were allowed to accumulate. Actually, not points, just police citations (since we're talking about drug tests not convictions).
I'm trying to separate those who think there needs to be a business justification from those who think "illegal act" is grounds for firing.
I was also talking about on the job tests as well, not just a pre-employment test.
I don't get this. If you want it, you surely see that there is some benefit to it. So on what grounds do you say you shouldn't be allowed to?
In my experience, any company that has drug-tested me has required that the test be taken within 24 hours of the initial interview. There was no warning of a drug test before then, and I either agreed to it or I didn't. They put up the 24-hour window so that you wouldn't have time for anything to work its way out of your system. If you failed to take the test within 24 hours, you were automatically disqualified.
These companies have no idea when you're doing drugs. Even if you're just smoking some weed on the weekends and are totally capable of doing the job, the company can't know that ahead of time. Companies are simply covering their asses just in case something happens, and I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do that.
We all accept certain conditions when we take a new job. It's up to us to decide whether the hoops are worth jumping through or if we should seek out alternate employment.
Well, the only people who normally look at your driving records are for jobs where you're going to be driving on company time. That's completely understandable to me.
Working isn't a right, it's a privilege. If the company you want to work for requires that you have to be drug free, then that's their right, in my opinion. No one is being arrested over a failed drug test or shunned by society. You just simply don't get the job if you don't pass the test. Just like a lot of companies won't hire convicted felons. There's nothing in any state law that says you can't discriminate based on types or amounts of drugs used.
Some of these stats were posted above, but this is just staggering:
Working isn't a right, it's a privilege. If the company you want to work for requires that you have to be drug free, then that's their right, in my opinion. No one is being arrested over a failed drug test or shunned by society. You just simply don't get the job if you don't pass the test. Just like a lot of companies won't hire convicted felons. There's nothing in any state law that says you can't discriminate based on types or amounts of drugs used.
Some of these stats were posted above, but this is just staggering:
Link
Because an employer's desire to put their nose in their employees' life should not surpass their right to privacy. Are you familiar with the concept of rights?
(Now, I've already said that I have less problems with random drug testing enshrined in contract for people working in positions where public safety may be at risk. To me, it's a good compromise.)
Utter bullshit.
Not that I need any reference to support my statement, but here you go:
Semantics, at best. Sure, you have the right to A job, but not any one in particular. Fail the drug test, maybe you can't get the high-paying tech job, but you can still work on the garbage truck (just probably not driving it).
You have the right to attempt to find employment, but reading what you posted seems to almost want to say the company has to hire you if you want to work there. Seems like your quote is missing a lot of context, most of which would go against your statement...
You have the right to attempt to find employment, but reading what you posted seems to almost want to say the company has to hire you if you want to work there. Seems like your quote is missing a lot of context, most of which would go against your statement...
Just pointing out that work is most definitively not a "I'll let you work for me if you jump through these hoops blindfolded and with a hand bind behind your back" privilege.
The drill is usually "there well be no jobs without the job creators!" But actually, there will be no jobs either without the workers who perform them: let's see what your factory is good for if the workers stop working. (This is why strikes are the single most effective tactic workers can use.)
he relationship between employers and employee is a symbiotic one: they both are needed for the system to work. Unfortunately, it's not an even relationship, since an employer can pretty much do whatever they want, since there is no shortage of downtrodden people who would accept pretty much any kind of job conditions because they need to put food on their family's table. And so, workers' rights are eroded, slowly but surely.
The only way workers can wield the same power of the employer, is for them to organize and coordinate. Quite obviously, political campaigns in the last 30 years used they propaganda to convince workers that unions are the work of the devil. Guessing who sponsored those campaigns is not particularly difficult to understand.
But I'm an old commie (well, not really, but still on the left of most people here), so all this is quite obvious to me.
The drill is usually "there well be no jobs without the job creators!" But actually, there will be no jobs either without the workers who perform them: let's see what your factory is good for if the workers stop working. (This is why strikes are the single most effective tactic workers can use.)
he relationship between employers and employee is a symbiotic one: they both are needed for the system to work. Unfortunately, it's not an even relationship, since an employer can pretty much do whatever they want, since there is no shortage of downtrodden people who would accept pretty much any kind of job conditions because they need to put food on their family's table. And so, workers' rights are eroded, slowly but surely.
The only way workers can wield the same power of the employer, is for them to organize and coordinate. Quite obviously, political campaigns in the last 30 years used they propaganda to convince workers that unions are the work of the devil. Guessing who sponsored those campaigns is not particularly difficult to understand.
But I'm an old commie (well, not really, but still on the left of most people here), so all this is quite obvious to me.
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It's sometimes possible to find out from the people who work there if they drug test. Otherwise, it's possible to plan ahead before a job interview in anticipation that they do.
I'll ask you. If they required something with no business justification, such as firing you for speeding, would you be ok with that too?
You're still missing my point. What if it's a job that doesn't require you to drive on company time. Would you still be in favor of them being able to fire you. After all, working is a privilege, not a right.
I never minded drug tests at all. One it's all payable time, if they want to pay me to sit in a doctor's office to wait to pee in a bottle, that's fine by me.
Two, I work in a trade where people can get hurt regularly without people being around who are stoned or drunk on the job. So I'm all for weeding out people who increase the chance of this. It's almost always someone else the people that are as high as a kite get hurt because they're not paying attention or can't function. I've seen it too often.
Three, opinions on the legalization of drugs or not, I personally think every employer has the right to base employment on compliance with the laws of society. If a prospective employee won't obey the law, what makes them think they'll obey company policies?
Two, I work in a trade where people can get hurt regularly without people being around who are stoned or drunk on the job. So I'm all for weeding out people who increase the chance of this. It's almost always someone else the people that are as high as a kite get hurt because they're not paying attention or can't function. I've seen it too often.
Three, opinions on the legalization of drugs or not, I personally think every employer has the right to base employment on compliance with the laws of society. If a prospective employee won't obey the law, what makes them think they'll obey company policies?
Speeders and jaywalkers must have a really hard time finding a job in your neighbourhood.
And most if not all have agreed there is a justifcation for testing where a risk to others is possed (and in law at least in the EU this is the case).
The point is that drug/drink testing should not be a free for all and totally unregulated. A balance needs to be struck between the rights of the individual and the rights of soceity as a whole.
Are you saying you've never ever broken a single law in your entire life?
If you drive you've never ever exceeded the speed limit even by .01mph? Because if you have you've technically broken the law so by your standard how can you be expected to obey a companies policy?
Well, a nice conclusion to draw there, but since you ask no I actually never have been in trouble with the law. To the point I doubt very much any employer is going to hold a traffic violation or even a few against a prospective employee. A history of repeated traffic violations is another story and does demonstrate a streak of irresponsibility. As for substance abuse, well there's no getting around that one, that is a delibrate choice. So, yes... an applicant's criminal background, tells a lot about a person's character.
You don't seem to really understand the concept of analogy.
If you have kids, would you feel safe sending them to a daycare with known cocaine users? Would you put them on the school bus with someone who wakes up every morning and smokes a joint before they go to work? Would you want the guy next to you on the assembly line working with dangerous machinery to be shooting up with heroin on his lunch break?
I just can't defend drug use in the workplace
I just can't defend drug use in the workplace
I for sure wouldn't want them to talk with someone who obtusely and repeatedly misses the point of a conversation. No known drug gives such terrible migraines.
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