With one of the best headlines I've seen on an article in forever, I encourage everyone to go read The Golden Age.Observers still debate how much safer and more productive drug testing makes the workplace. But there’s at least one outfit that has no complaints about its efficacy. Forty million drug tests at an average of $30 a pop equals a $1.2 billion subsidy the federal government receives from the private sector each year to help prosecute its endless War on Drugs.Even companies that don't give a damn about employee drug use can find themselves caving in to the demand for a drug-free workplace. Almost all insurance providers demand random workplace piss tests and drug testing after any injury or accident. The biggest lie in this is in testing for THC. Traces of marijuana use can be found in urine for up to a month after the buzz has given out. (While other drugs can be in the system when the user is no longer under the influence, pot is one of the most extreme examples.) In other words, that joint you had for Thanksgiving to make the relatives more tolerable could get you fired the day before Christmas. It's a scam and the medical and criminal justice systems know it and ignore it.
And all this came about shortly after the privatization of the health care industry. Hmmm...
Had the federal government started knocking on our front doors in 1988, cup in hand, demanding compulsory urinalysis, there would have been widespread outrage. Instead, in a move akin to Tom Sawyer convincing his pals to give him their marbles for the opportunity to whitewash Aunt Polly’s fence, the government outsourced its soaking of the Fourth Amendment to the private sector. It was one of the most ingenious policy decisions of the last 20 years.And as President I will strike this piece of shit from the records using every resource available to me. One employer drug tested me three times in one month. I think they just couldn't believe I was clean. Many employers use "random" drug testing to try and weed out employees they don't like without having to pay unemployment. It is as stupid now as it was when they first tried to enforce it.
Until I am elected, you can still drink yourself into oblivion. Just not before work.
(I think I wouldn't mind it so much if you got to piss in your boss' mouth instead of a cup. If he then rambles for over an hour about how the Grateful Dead are a kick ass band, you're fired.)
2 comments:
It's a joke. Someone can use cocaine, a narcotic on every Friday and test clean on Monday. Someone else could partake of a joint being passed around at a concert last month and get fired.
In my mind drug testing should only occur during the hiring process and after that ONLY if there is an accident or reason to suspect the person is high/drunk at work. Random testing of our body fluids is as much a violation of the fourth amendment as if the cops knocked on my door and said, "Your house has been chosen for a random search."
In my mind drug testing should only occur during the hiring process and after that ONLY if there is an accident or reason to suspect the person is high/drunk at work.
I'd actually like to see it restricted to a lot less than that. I don't think anyone's got a right to test you unless you've done something else wrong.
I guess I can see the logic in drug tests before hiring at jobs where you hold someone's life in your hands. Still, all that will do is weed out people dumb enough to do drugs less than a month before looking for a job. It doesn't stop the problem, and it doesn't stop drug-users who knew they were looking for a job and could afford to go for a month on unemployment.
Violating our privacy isn't worth the dubious benefits it gives us.
I could see it in situations where you thought someone's crappy performance was because they came to work stoned. In that case, though, why test them? If they fucked up that bad while sober, it's every bit as much reason to fire them as if they'd fucked up while stoned.
And in case someone thinks there's ulterior motives in my statements, I'll add that I've never done drugs, not even experimentally. In college I had a roommate who smoked a joint about once a month, and I'd leave the apartment for the whole night when he did so. I hardly ever drink, and have never done so to an extent where i had a hangover or did anything that I regretted upon sobering.
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