Employer Drug Test Policies

[The Cleric]

That would be perfectly legal, and have heard about similar practices in some law firms.

[Darth Wong]

Alright then, how would you feel if your company fired you because they decided it wasn't economical to hire people with children because obligations to your family my take away from your productivity?

Don't be an imbecile. Firing and hiring are two different things. Once you've been working there for more than two months, they must show justification for firing you, because you are not an unknown quantity. They know how productive and capable you are, so the whole issue of trying to predict your productivity is moot. But anything goes when they're taking a risk on an unknown quantity.

What if this became a widespread form of discrimination on the same level as drug testing?

What if you grew a fucking brain? I don't like it when people try to hijack threads by changing the subject, and that's precisely what you're trying to do here.

As for refusing to HIRE people with children, they might very well do that. Some jobs, in fact, do specifically state that they prefer people who aren't tied down.

[Galvatron]

Taken from the NORML FAQ...

Don't alcohol and tobacco use already cause enough damage to society? Why should we legalize another intoxicant?

While there are indeed health and societal problems due to the use of alcohol and nicotine, these negative consequences would be amplified if consumption of either substance were prohibited.

Marijuana is already the third most popular recreational drug in America, despite harsh laws against its use. Millions of Americans smoke it responsibly. Our public policies should reflect this reality, not deny it.

In addition, marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. It fails to inflict the types of serious health consequences these two legal drugs cause. Around 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning. Similarly, more than 400,000 deaths each year are attributed to tobacco smoking. By comparison, marijuana is nontoxic and cannot cause death by overdose. According to the prestigious European medical journal, The Lancet, "The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health. It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat than alcohol or tobacco."

No one is suggesting we encourage more drug use; simply that we stop arresting responsible marijuana smokers. In recent years, we have significantly reduced the prevalence of drunk driving and tobacco smoking. We have not achieved this by prohibiting the use of alcohol and tobacco or by targeting and arresting adults who use alcohol and tobacco responsibly, but through honest educational campaigns. We should apply these same principles to the responsible consumption of marijuana. The negative consequences primarily associated with marijuana -- such as an arrest or jail time -- are the result of the criminal prohibition of cannabis, not the use of marijuana itself.

[The Kernel]

Don't be an imbecile. Firing and hiring are two different things. Once you've been working there for more than two months, they must show justification for firing you, because you are not an unknown quantity. They know how productive and capable you are, so the whole issue of trying to predict your productivity is moot. But anything goes when they're taking a risk on an unknown quantity.

Most companies that perform drug testing have a clause in your employment contract that says a positive drug test is grounds for termination; the two go hand in hand.

As for refusing to HIRE people with children, they might very well do that. Some jobs, in fact, do specifically state that they prefer people who aren't tied down.

Answer my original question, what if having kids became a widespread form of discrimination in across all different sorts of jobs much like drug testing is today. Would you be okay with that?

[The Cleric]

Answer my original question, what if having kids became a widespread form of discrimination in across all different sorts of jobs much like drug testing is today. Would you be okay with that?

Would he have a choice? It is within their rights.

[Galvatron]

Dammit, I meant to post that in the other drug thread. Can a mod move it?

[Darth Wong]

Don't be an imbecile. Firing and hiring are two different things. Once you've been working there for more than two months, they must show justification for firing you, because you are not an unknown quantity. They know how productive and capable you are, so the whole issue of trying to predict your productivity is moot. But anything goes when they're taking a risk on an unknown quantity.

Most companies that perform drug testing have a clause in your employment contract that says a positive drug test is grounds for termination; the two go hand in hand.

Well, then you must have agreed to it. Too bad. As I said before, drug users are not a specially protected group.

As for refusing to HIRE people with children, they might very well do that. Some jobs, in fact, do specifically state that they prefer people who aren't tied down.

Answer my original question, what if having kids became a widespread form of discrimination in across all different sorts of jobs much like drug testing is today. Would you be okay with that?

It is a widespread form of discrimination in certain jobs, dumb-ass. Particularly executive and managerial jobs, where you are expected to either have no family to speak of or to completely neglect your family for the sake of the company; either works. And no, I don't like it, but I understand it. It will, of course, never trickle down to lower-paying jobs because that is impossible: too much of the workforce has children.

[Darth Wong]

<snip argument against criminalization of marijuana>

I support de-criminalization. You are barking up the wrong tree; de-criminalization has nothing to do with forcing employees to ignore it as a factor when hiring people.

[Darth Wong]

Dammit, I meant to post that in the other drug thread. Can a mod move it?

Sorry, there's no function for moving posts between threads. You should just post it in the other thread and then request that we delete it from this one.

[The Kernel]

It is a widespread form of discrimination in certain jobs, dumb-ass. Particularly executive and managerial jobs, where you are expected to either have no family to speak of or to completely neglect your family for the sake of the company; either works.

Don't bullshit me, managers may have no choice but to neglect their family because of the time constraints, but they are not forced into doing so under penalty of termination.

And no, I don't like it, but I understand it. It will, of course, never trickle down to lower-paying jobs because that is impossible: too much of the workforce has children.

During an extremely poor economy, anything that can increase productivity can happen, especially in the entry level positions.

[Darth Wong]

It is a widespread form of discrimination in certain jobs, dumb-ass. Particularly executive and managerial jobs, where you are expected to either have no family to speak of or to completely neglect your family for the sake of the company; either works.

Don't bullshit me, managers may have no choice but to neglect their family because of the time constraints, but they are not forced into doing so under penalty of termination.

Where the fuck have you worked? A union shop? A tech company during the Silicon Boom? Hell yes, managers can be fired for not neglecting their families. I've seen it happen. Two of my own fucking supervisors have been fired or demoted for precisely that. Maybe it doesn't work that way in Never Never Land or wherever the fuck you've been working, but I've fucking seen it. Many times. Moreover, it's almost impossible to get promoted to managerial positions in the first place in many companies unless you either have no family or are willing to act as though you have no family. There's a glass ceiling for a 40-hour a week family man, and that's just something you have to accept.

During an extremely poor economy, anything that can increase productivity can happen, especially in the entry level positions.

Which is one of the reasons that people who work longer hours are better protected at most jobs (again, I don't know where the fuck you've been working). At every company I worked at, the single guy who put in 70 hours a week was a fucking hero in the eyes of management and was immune to layoffs, while the guy who clocked in his 40 hours a week and went home to his family was Number One on the chopping block.

Do I like that? No, but guess what: it's completely fair. That no-life 70 hour a week asshole is giving the company better value than the 40-hour a week guy, so the 40-hour a week guy has to find some kind of edge or he's at risk. WELCOME TO JOBWORLD. Enjoy your stay; the company ain't your mother.

[Darth Wong]

BTW, equating the social imperative and human drive to procreate to the desire to use drugs is pretty fucking funny. People will make enormous sacrifices to have children and they will stand their ground when challenged for many reasons because of the HUGE importance they place on their families. But someone who refuses to give up drugs in order to hold down a job is betraying either very low interest in getting or holding his job or a disturbingly high interest in doing drugs (so high that, in this case, it's being equated to the human instinct to reproduce and mate). Either way, I wouldn't want to hire such a person.

[Durandal]

Hardly. There are a lot of people who would prefer to have totally drug-free employees, and there's a perfectly operable rationale for such discrimination. If you don't like it, tough nuts for you. There are certain kinds of worker problems that are directly correlated to drug use, so it's not as if there's no reason.

No, there are certain kinds of problems which are correlated with habitual drug use. If an employer wants to maintain an environment where his employees are completely drug-free, then fine, but he shouldn't expect productivity to be affected in any way.

What data is there to show that someone with just one felony conviction ten years ago is a risk to the employer? It's a risk, and one which the company should not be forced to take. Not by you, not by the government, not by anybody.

And no one is forcing them to take it. I'm only pointing out that there is no data to show that hiring people who have smoked marijuana is a productivity detriment.

Wrong. That summary is disingenuous to say the least. It promotes a $77k cost to find each drug user, but that figure is based on the spending of the federal government, which quite frankly could easily spend $77 to find a toilet. Inside the actual study itself, it acknowledges that some studies provide contradictory data to others, so the results are at best inconclusive. This does not prove that drug testing is worthwhile, but it certainly does not prove that is a "poor investment with no real benefit". Managerial risk management, particularly with regard to sociological issues which only affect a small portion of the population, is not necessary going to turn up the kind of glaringly obvious correlations you'd find when, for example, correlating tobacco use to cancer.

I read the study, and it includes figures for the airline industry as well as debunkings of claims that assert $100 billion in productivity is lost to drug use every year. Furthermore, the NAS compiled the studies, which often contradicted each other, and still found that "the data... do not provide clear evidence of the deleterious effects of drugs other than alcohol on safety and other job performance indicators."

You're talking about risk management, but study after study has shown that marijuana users are not less productive than non-users, so what risk are you talking about? The risk that the user might get caught and be issued a citation and hefty fine?

Precisely; the corporation is offering you something which they are not obligated to offer. In return, they ask that you offer something which you are also not obligated to offer. Hence, they are not doing anything immoral. And while thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to identify a single drug user sounds like a frightening figure, it is actually not necessarily a big deal from a major corporation's viewpoint. Most companies would be overjoyed to spend just $77 to find a single embezzler, for example.

That's because embezzlers cost the company money. Drug users do not. Spending $77,000 to catch a drug-using employee is money completely down the drain.

So? Why do we need exact data on precisely how much the person uses drugs in order to say "we don't want to hire a fucking drug user"?

You don't. It's your company; hire whomever you wish. Just don't run around saying that there's some sort of massive productivity gain from hiring clean workers. Companies didn't seem to give a shit about drug use among employees until Saint Ronald and the drug testing companies told them to, using bogus evidence and citing massive figures like "$100 billion is lost in productivity to drug use."

You're oversimplifying.

Really? I think it's pretty damn simple actually. You spend money on drug testing, when study after study has shown that a drug user is just as productive as a regular person. So by catching this drug-using employee, you're not making or saving any money. You're just spending money to catch him. How is that not wasting money?

The results are inconclusive because drug users don't account for a large enough percentage of the workforce to overwhelm other factors and create a statistically significant correlation in every study. That's what the study says when you actually read it instead of accepting the disingenuous summary of it. While you can crow that it's inconclusive, the point remains that the company has a workable rationale for being concerned about drug use, and quite frankly, it's not up to you to decide whether it's cost-effective for them. A drug-addicted worker can do far more damage than missing work or suffering from limited productivity, and it is the concern over this risk (a term that I keep using but which you don't seem to grasp in this context) which prompts their use of drug testing.

I see what you're saying, but you're talking about comparative hiring. This thread is about canning people on the spot for failing drug tests, even if there were no other applicants or if the guy's already been hired.

It's like saying, "Sorry, our PI spotted you at your home having a glass of wine, so we're gonna have to fire you." Hell when I worked at CompUSA, they put me in a uniform a week before the results even came back from the lab. If those tests would've come back positive, I'd have been fired. Drug tests serve as deal-breakers in the hiring process and for termination.

If there is no other difference between the two employees, I would choose the clean one, yes. A person who is hiring new employees looks for any remotely reasonable criteria upon which to whittle down the list of applicants to its eventual final value of one. Is that so hard to understand? You still don't understand JobWorld, do you?

In comparative hiring, yes, you are correct, and I will concede that particular point. Alcohol or drug use does add a small element of risk. However, drug tests aren't used as a risk analysis measurement. They are dealbreakers. An employer doesn't sit down and compare an applicant who tested positive to one who did not. Even if the guy who tests positive is overwhelmingly more qualified for the position than the guy who didn't test positive, his application gets canned, or he gets fired if he's already started working there.

[Durandal]

Dammit, I meant to post that in the other drug thread. Can a mod move it?

Can't do exactly that, I'm afraid. But you can duplicate your post in the other thread, and I can just delete it from this one.

[Darth Wong]

Hardly. There are a lot of people who would prefer to have totally drug-free employees, and there's a perfectly operable rationale for such discrimination. If you don't like it, tough nuts for you. There are certain kinds of worker problems that are directly correlated to drug use, so it's not as if there's no reason.

No, there are certain kinds of problems which are correlated with habitual drug use.

And how many habitual drug users would you have in your company if you have no drug users at all? Oh yes, zero. Somewhere along the line, you're still missing the point.

If an employer wants to maintain an environment where his employees are completely drug-free, then fine, but he shouldn't expect productivity to be affected in any way.

That's an interesting way of interpreting "no conclusive evidence" in forensic statistics-based sociological studies; a notoriously murky subject to begin with.

I read the study, and it includes figures for the airline industry as well as debunkings of claims that assert $100 billion in productivity is lost to drug use every year.

Debunking exaggerated claims != proof that there is zero effect. And the point about the $77k figure stands.

Furthermore, the NAS compiled the studies, which often contradicted each other, and still found that "the data... do not provide clear evidence of the deleterious effects of drugs other than alcohol on safety and other job performance indicators."

You think "do not provide clear evidence" is different from "inconclusive" for some reason? Why? I do like the way you conveniently forgot everything you've ever said about the precision of sociology for the purpose of this thread.

You're talking about risk management, but study after study has shown that marijuana users are not less productive than non-users, so what risk are you talking about? The risk that the user might get caught and be issued a citation and hefty fine?

The risk that the person's drug use might become problematic. Alcoholics are generally moderate drinkers first, and it doesn't take a genius to see why a drug user is at higher risk of developing a serious habit than someone who never touches the stuff.

That's because embezzlers cost the company money. Drug users do not. Spending $77,000 to catch a drug-using employee is money completely down the drain.

Again, you obviously don't get this whole "risk management" principle. Particularly in areas where job performance is critical; I don't want a fucking engineer or nuclear power plant operator or pilot who may either have a substance abuse problem or be at elevated risk of developing one. Are you honestly so blinded by your pro-druggie mantra that you can't see why?

You don't. It's your company; hire whomever you wish. Just don't run around saying that there's some sort of massive productivity gain from hiring clean workers.

I didn't. So please drop the strawman; I grow weary of you repeating it.

<snip more repetitions of the $100 billion strawman>

I see what you're saying, but you're talking about comparative hiring. This thread is about canning people on the spot for failing drug tests, even if there were no other applicants or if the guy's already been hired.

In the case of actually firing people, I'd say it's probably not a good policy if you're basing it on productivity, but it depends on the kind of job we're talking about. If it's a nuclear operator, I'd fire the guy on the spot for drug use, and I don't give a shit if he's just as "productive", because there are more factors in risk management than productivity (in fact, productivity has nothing at all to do with some forms of risk management). Sue me if you don't like it.

It's like saying, "Sorry, our PI spotted you at your home having a glass of wine, so we're gonna have to fire you."

If we had stipulated beforehand that the job would only go to people who do not drink alcohol, that would be reasonable. Of course, no one is likely to have such stipulations since casual drinkers are such a huge percentage of the population that it would cause severe staffing problems, but that's a matter of practicality, not principle. Drinking, like drug use, is not a specially protected activity.

Hell when I worked at CompUSA, they put me in a uniform a week before the results even came back from the lab. If those tests would've come back positive, I'd have been fired. Drug tests serve as deal-breakers in the hiring process and for termination.

At CompUSA, they obviously don't trust their employees. I'd say they're being excessive since a CompUSA employee is (to be blunt) a mindless drone position anyway, but that doesn't affect the basic principle that an employer:

A) may have legitimate reasons to want clean personnel

B) has the right to enforce these standards

If there is no other difference between the two employees, I would choose the clean one, yes. A person who is hiring new employees looks for any remotely reasonable criteria upon which to whittle down the list of applicants to its eventual final value of one. Is that so hard to understand? You still don't understand JobWorld, do you?

In comparative hiring, yes, you are correct, and I will concede that particular point. Alcohol or drug use does add a small element of risk. However, drug tests aren't used as a risk analysis measurement. They are dealbreakers.

Risk analysis can be a dealbreaker in some cases.

An employer doesn't sit down and compare an applicant who tested positive to one who did not. Even if the guy who tests positive is overwhelmingly more qualified for the position than the guy who didn't test positive, his application gets canned, or he gets fired if he's already started working there.

In the case of CompUSA jobs I think they're being overly paranoid, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong in principle.

[Durandal]

The risk that the person's drug use might become problematic. Alcoholics are generally moderate drinkers first, and it doesn't take a genius to see why a drug user is at higher risk of developing a serious habit than someone who never touches the stuff.

You're right. I hadn't thought of that. I'll concede that point.

In the case of actually firing people, I'd say it's probably not a good policy if you're basing it on productivity, but it depends on the kind of job we're talking about. If it's a nuclear operator, I'd fire the guy on the spot for drug use, and I don't give a shit if he's just as "productive", because there are more factors in risk management than productivity (in fact, productivity has nothing at all to do with some forms of risk management). Sue me if you don't like it.

Well then I think we're in tentative agreement on that point.

At CompUSA, they obviously don't trust their employees. I'd say they're being excessive since a CompUSA employee is (to be blunt) a mindless drone position anyway, but that doesn't affect the basic principle that an employer:

Sales is a lot harder than you make it sound. In the case of cashiers, you're right. But the sales people on the floor (at least the ones in my store) knew their shit, and I developed a one-to-one relationship with many customers. After just a few months there, I had people requesting me by name. "Mindless drones" don't see those kinds of requests.

Other than that, I'm willing to bow out of the debate at this point.

[StarshipTitanic]

The CompUSA employee is exposed to lots of expensive things to steal and pawn for drug money. That could be their management's line of reasoning.

[Durandal]

The CompUSA employee is exposed to lots of expensive things to steal and pawn for drug money. That could be their management's line of reasoning.

They instituted mandatory searches of every employee leaving the store just before I left. They were more worried about employees buying things at cost and then selling them on eBay than actually stealing, because it's a lot easier to get away with. One long-time employee got fired for doing exactly that.

[Darth Wong]

I'd say Durandal and I are in tentative agreement on the general principle that drug testing can be warranted for certain kinds of jobs (particularly those you would characterize as "mission-critical"), but excessive in the case of CompUSA (although they have the right to do them if they want).

[Durandal]

I'd say Durandal and I are in tentative agreement on the general principle that drug testing can be warranted for certain kinds of jobs (particularly those you would characterize as "mission-critical"), but excessive in the case of CompUSA (although they have the right to do them if they want).

Ah so that's where that post went! I tried replying to it in the split thread, only to get "You can only quote posts that exist." These threads are confusing.

[The Kernel]

Where the fuck have you worked? A union shop? A tech company during the Silicon Boom?

I've worked at several coporations ranging from software companies to media companies since I was 15. Not that it has much relevence to this.

Hell yes, managers can be fired for not neglecting their families. I've seen it happen. Two of my own fucking supervisors have been fired or demoted for precisely that. Maybe it doesn't work that way in Never Never Land or wherever the fuck you've been working, but I've fucking seen it. Many times. Moreover, it's almost impossible to get promoted to managerial positions in the first place in many companies unless you either have no family or are willing to act as though you have no family. There's a glass ceiling for a 40-hour a week family man, and that's just something you have to accept.

Will you stop being a dense fucking moron and read what I wrote? A manager cannot be denied a job for merely having a family in any company I've ever heard of. How they budget their time is their own business.

Which is one of the reasons that people who work longer hours are better protected at most jobs (again, I don't know where the fuck you've been working). At every company I worked at, the single guy who put in 70 hours a week was a fucking hero in the eyes of management and was immune to layoffs, while the guy who clocked in his 40 hours a week and went home to his family was Number One on the chopping block.

All of which is a complete Red Herring to my argument.

[Darth Wong]

Will you stop being a dense fucking moron and read what I wrote? A manager cannot be denied a job for merely having a family in any company I've ever heard of. How they budget their time is their own business.

Yes, I read what you wrote. And all you're doing is exaggerating the situation, dumbshit. A family is far more important to any reasonable person than a recreational drug habit, hence people are far more accepting of families. But anybody who puts his family first before his job is not going to get those promotions. Period. And anybody who puts something as relatively unimportant as a drug habit before his job should not even get hired at all. You are taking a difference of degrees and trying to portray it as a difference of concept.

All of which is a complete Red Herring to my argument.

Only if you don't understand what's wrong with black/white fallacies, and it appears you don't.

Are you saying that you would have no problem with a drug user being hired for a mission-critical job? There's a point where idealism becomes stupidity, and you're reaching it.

[The Kernel]

Yes, I read what you wrote. And all you're doing is exaggerating the situation, dumbshit. A family is far more important to any reasonable person than a recreational drug habit, hence people are far more accepting of families.

Irrelevent. I have seen no data that shows recreational drug use to be a detriment to productivity (indeed, Durandal's data seems to point against such a conclusion) while you yourself have admitted that having a family would be a negative effect on productivity.

But anybody who puts his family first before his job is not going to get those promotions. Period.

Bullshit. My parents both found time to have a family and both were highly successful executives. In addition I know several executives of major corporations (that I would be glad to name if you like) which found time to raise successful families. They may have not had much time for fun, but they managed.

And anybody who puts something as relatively unimportant as a drug habit before his job should not even get hired at all. You are taking a difference of degrees and trying to portray it as a difference of concept.

Once again, bullshit. I never said that the potential applicant is putting drug use before their job, merely that they should not be forced to choose between the two since performing a job satisfactorally and recreational drug use are NOT mutually exclusive.

Only if you don't understand what's wrong with black/white fallacies, and it appears you don't.

I find it amusing that you can speak to me about black/white fallacies while making the following statement:

Are you saying that you would have no problem with a drug user being hired for a mission-critical job? There's a point where idealism becomes stupidity, and you're reaching it.

Now whose commiting the black/white fallacy asshole? Did you read my earlier post where I said drug testing of people like airline pilots is perfectly acceptable? If drug use could potentially seriously hamper their job and even cause potential harm to others then by all means drug tests should be employed. It is the drug testing of workers who have jobs in which recreational drug use would have no effect on their work that I object to.

[Death from the Sea]

Einy: sorry, but in order to show that drug testing is "unreasonable search and seizure", you must show that it is unreasonable. And quite frankly, there are numerous perfectly reasonable justifications to do drug testing on employees; marijuana may not be the Devil in Disguise as people said in the 1950s, but all other things being equal, a prospective employee who does drugs frequently enough to fail a test when he applies for a job is not my idea of a good risk. A company is offering you something: a job. It is not unreasonable of them to ask that you submit to a drug test in exchange for a job offer.

You must define "frequently enough." You can easily fail a drug test even if you haven't smoked marijuana in months. What's more, do companies rescind job offers they've made to people they found out were drinking the weekend before? No. Do companies monitor the drinking habits of their employees when they're off the clock? No. The only time it becomes an issue for the employer is when off-the-clock habits begin to affect on-the-clock performance. Singling out narcotics in this area is just silly, especially when alcohol is just as likely, if not far more likely, to cause problems.

some employers do actually, I am in the interviewing process for a job right now that asks and monitors such things.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Irrelevent. I have seen no data that shows recreational drug use to be a detriment to productivity (indeed, Durandal's data seems to point against such a conclusion) while you yourself have admitted that having a family would be a negative effect on productivity.

He's saying they may NOT be too deterimental to productivity, but that they are definitely in a higher-risk category. Since everyone agrees that severe drug use will definitely be detrimental, which do you think is lower risk?

1) Start drug roll * Addiction roll * Drug Abuse Roll
2) Drug Abuse Roll only

Now explain to me why the company has to accept the higher risk product on an equal basis.

Bullshit. My parents both found time to have a family and both were highly successful executives.

I congratulate your parents. Since Value = Ability * Effort, a high enough Ability in relation to their competitors could compensate for the diversion of Effort to a family.

I wonder, however, how you define "had time to have a family." Does that mean they dumped the kids out, then missed most of their school plays, created a pile of broken promises to their kids ... etc. Or did they really have time. Or maybe they were just lucky, and were never asked to make that choice.

Since I really doubt if a conflict happened, and you chose your family more then very occasionally, that it would not affect your standings when it comes to the promotions or the layoffs.