Work Place Drug Testing

Drug testing at the work place comes down to those six legal drug testing values. An employer’s right to know who they are hiring stands in conflict with an individual’s right to privacy, including at the work place.

Many have taken the libertarian stance towards drug use, stating the individual right to consume whatever they please, but of course this does not jive with legal statutes currently in place. Work place employers, like anyone, have been affected by the Reefer Madness Movement.

The government pushed massive amounts of misinformation throughout communities and schools, and employers are not informed enough yet to dictate what drugs will harm the work place. Thus, work place drug testing has taken full effect. The only effective way, according to the author of this article, is to select work place employees and evaluate their performance on the job.

Phil Smith summarizes an article in March 1990 Scientific American:

…suggested that workers who tested positive for marijuana only: 1) cost less in health insurance benefits; 2) had a higher than average rate of promotion; 3) exhibited less absenteeism; and 4) were fired for cause less often than workers who did not test positive. Since marijuana is the most common illicit drug used by adults, and the one detected in up to 90 percent of all positive drug tests (half of which are false), this fact has radical implications for current public and employer policies.

This article seemed to carry significant statistical evidence about work place drug testing.

Under that light, one can see greater negative effects in work place drug testing than in drug use. The original author of this article feels that work place drug testing is wrong because guilt is assumed until the drug testing proves innocence. Adding, the peoples’ civil liberties are suffering. This particular privacy intrusion costs businesses a huge sum of money for a urine drug test in the work place.