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Contents:
[Introduction]
[Origins] [What is the
problem for which drug testing is the solution?]
[Claims of drug testing proponents:] [Productivity]
[Firestone] [Accidents]
[Benefits] [Junk
science U.S. policy] [Turnovers] [Decreasing
positivity rates] [What
can drug-testing technology accomplish?]
[Drug testing is not a victimless crime] [Drug testing is expensive]
[Drug testing is
unconstitutional]
[Let's declare Victory!] [Problems
caused by testing] [Alternatives]
[References]
Introduction
In September 1986 President Reagan issued an Executive Order mandating
federal agencies to institute drug testing programs in pursuit of a
concept; the drug-free workplace. In 1986 the American Management
Association surveyed its members regarding corporate drug policies.
Twenty-one percent of its members had started drug testing programs and 79
percent had not. A decade later those proportions were reversed with some
81 percent of firms having instituted one form or another or urine drug
testing.(Hoffman
and Larison, 1998) In 1996 the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Administration Services Administration reported that some 13 percent of
full time U.S. workers had taken a mandatory drug test.
We will trace the origins of workplace drug testing and carefully
examine the claims made by drug testing proponents that fueled the
dramatic growth of this “solution” to the “substance abuse problem
in America.” If there is no workplace drug problem worthy of a costly
response like national drug testing, or if significant problems exists but
drug testing does not address them, then from a human relations point of
view employee testing programs must be rejected as harmful, invasive and
without redeeming merit. Is
it not economically unjustifiable and morally irresponsible to promote the
often indiscriminant use of an intrusive, stigmatizing, very expensive
and arguably unconstitutional drug-testing technology whose efficacy has never been demonstrated?
Origins of Drug Testing
The
application of drug testing technology grew rapidly in the 1980’s. In
1983, when President Reagan established the President’s Commission on
Organized Crime (PCOC), only the military had a policy of widespread
testing. The PCOC reported in 1986 and recommended drug testing for both
the public and private sectors. In the same year, Reagan made the concept
of a “drug free workplace” a national policy goal and mandated every
federal agency establish a program of urine drug testing for employees
working in “sensitive positions.”
The forces behind the rapid expansion of drug testing technology
are not difficult to trace. Drug testing was sold to American business by
the proprietary claims of the drug testing industry in conjunction with
federal legislation and initiatives that have encouraged or mandated
businesses to implement drug-testing programs. In their 1994 survey, the
American Management Association found that over half of their members
indicated that the decision to implement drug testing was based on federal
requirements or incentives.
(1994 American
Management Association Survey, 1995)
What
is the
problem for which drug testing is the
solution?
Workplace
drug testing has been touted as a path to a safer work environment, a less
expensive and more productive workforce, and as a technology to decrease
substance abuse in America. Some of these claims are factually wrong, and
most have been thoroughly discredited. There is no evidence that drug
testing can make the workplace a safer and more prosperous environment nor
is there any credible evidence that drug testing has any appreciable
impact on rates of problematic substance misuse. Rather, the value of drug
testing programs is symbolic. Workplace drug testing is a proxy for
‘doing something about the drug problem.’ It stands in lieu of a
rational, planned managerial response to the real problems. Having a
drug-testing program makes a public statement that the employer is
‘tough on drugs.’
Consider Anthony Scalia’s dissenting opinion when the Supreme
Court upheld the validity of mandatory drug testing of Customs Official:
""What better way to show that the Government is
serious about its "war on drugs" than to subject its employees
on the front line of that war to this invasion of their privacy and
affront to their dignity? To be sure, there is only a slight chance that
it will prevent some serious public harm resulting from Service employee
drug use, but it will show to the world that the Service is
"clean," and -- most important of all -- will demonstrate the
determination of the government to eliminate this scourge of our society!
I think it obvious that this justification is unacceptable; that the
impairment of individual liberties cannot be the means of making a point;
that symbolism, even symbolism for so worthy a cause as the abolition of
unlawful drugs, cannot validate an otherwise unreasonable search.""
(National
Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab (Judge Scalia dissenting), 1989)
Claims of Drug Testing
Proponents
We will now take a detailed look at the claims that have sold drug
testing to corporate America and to the American public for almost twenty
years.
Claim: Drug
users cost businesses $33 billion each year in lost productivity
The claim the
drug users are responsible for tens of billions of dollars in productivity
losses has been very commonly asserted, and its persistence is quite
remarkable. In the 1990’s the estimate was revised from $33 billion
upward to $60 billion to account for “inflation,” and by the end of
that decade drug users were said to be costing American business an even
$100 billion in “lost productivity.”
(Maltby,
1999)
When there is a reference for this huge dollar-toll exacted on the
profitability of American business, it is to a study by the usually
reputable Research Triangle Institute (RTI) in North Carolina. The study
was published in 1984 with the title, “Economic
Costs to Society of Alcohol and Drug Abuse and Mental Illness.”
(Harwood, 1984)
Here is
how the RTI came up with the $33 billion number. Harwood, using data from
the National Household Drug Use Survey, compared the income of households
that never contained a daily marijuana user with the income of households
that did include a daily marijuana user. Households with a daily marijuana
user earned less on average, and this difference was ascribed to “lost
productivity due to drugs.” The researchers then multiplied this figure
by the estimated number of marijuana users in the workforce to come up
with $33 billion in lost productivity due to drug use. One can only
comment that a statistic labeled “lost productivity” that is not based
on analysis of any actual productivity data is meaningless.
Interestingly,
when the RTI researchers looked at other drug use measures, they failed to
reach findings they found useful:
“For example, RTI researchers found no difference in the annual
incomes of households with and without current marijuana users. Nor did
they find any differences in households with and without members who used
illicit drugs other than marijuana, in the past or in the present. If
researchers had chosen any of these alternative measures, ‘lost
productivity’ due to drugs would have been zero.”
(Maltby,
1999)
A
thorough review of the literature on drug testing and productivity was
conducted under National Institute of Drug Abuse sponsorship and
culminated in a book entitled, “Under the Influence? Drugs and the
American Workforce,” which was published in 1994. The authors found
“few systematic studies relating drug-testing programs to workers'
productivity, and those that had been done were often flawed in
significant ways."
(Normand,
Lempert, and O'Brien, 1994)
There is one good
study on the question of the relationship between drug testing and
productivity that employs a sophisticated methodology to analyze actual
productivity data. Shepard et. al.:
“… used an economic production function model and a test
industry to assess the effects of drug testing on performance in the
workplace… The empirical results suggest that
drug testing programs do not succeed in improving productivity.
Surprisingly, companies adopting drug testing programs are found to
exhibit lower levels of productivity than their counterparts that do not. The
regression coefficients representing potential effects of drug testing
programs on productivity are both negative and significant. Both
pre-employment and random testing of workers are found to be associated
with lower levels of productivity. The estimation procedure
includes controls or corrections for capital quality and
heteroskedasticity.
(Shepard
and Clifton, 1998; See also: Shepard and Clifton, 1998b)
[Emphasis mine]
In
this study, firms with drug testing programs were fully 20 percent less
productive than firms without such programs. We will discuss some reasons
why drug testing might be associated with a significant decrease in
productivity at the end of this paper when we consider alternatives to
drug testing.
Besides billions in lost productivity, other commonly made claims
included statistics purported to show that drug users have 2.5 times more
absences, are 3.6 times more likely to be in a workplace accident, are 5
times more likely to file a workman’s compensation claim and use 3 times
more medical services than do non-drug using workers. Exactly where do
these numbers come from?
The
Firestone “Study”
These
“statistics” are rarely accompanied by references. When a reference is
given to support claims about accidents and absenteeism and benefits the
citation is usually to “The Firestone Study.” The only problem is that
the “Firestone Study” never existed. Quoting from "Drug Testing, A Bad Investment:"
"In 1972, in a
luncheon address to executives of the Firestone Company, an
unidentified speaker ... claimed that workers with 'medical-behavioral
problems' ... had 2.5 times more absences [etc]. No mention was made of
how the data had been obtained, how many workers had been examined, or the
nature of the workers' 'medical-behavioral' problems. ... The
following year, the Firestone speech was reproduced in an archival
collection of essays where, ten years later, it was discovered by Sidney
Cohen, editor of the widely read 'Drug Abuse and Alcoholism
Newsletter."
(Maltby,
1999)
Cohen clearly implied that research had been done and that he
had studied the results and was now going to interpret them for his
readers.
(Cohen, 1985)
. In any event, once Sidney Cohen sanctioned the Firestone “results”
they gained the full backing of his significant stature and that of his
Newsletter. This is how it happens.
Claim: Drug users cause workplace accidents.
This claim has been conclusively shown to be
false. Hoffman and Larison’s thorough analysis of the 1994 National
Household Survey data reveals no association between drug use, present or
past, and workplace accidents.
(Hoffman
and Larison, 1998)
Although these results may seem unintuitive, they agree with other studies
on this issue.
(French,
Roebuck, and Alexandre, 2001)
Claim: Drug users use more medical benefits.
Wrong again. Studies on this question are
equivocal at best. A large study of postal workers published in 1990 found
that 64 percent of drug test positives, compared to 48 percent of those
testing negative for drugs, were above the median for medical claims made.
But in another good study, Utah Power and Light workers who tested
positive cost the company less in medical claims then their colleagues who
tested negative for drugs ($1,009.00 vs. $1,438.00)
(Normand,
Lempert, and O'Brien, 1994)
Junk science and U.S. Government policy
It is
particularly dismaying to find this same old tired litany of discredited
misinformation written, without attribution, into the “Findings”
section of the Drug Free Workplace Act of 1998.
(a) Findings.-Congress finds that-
...
(4) employees who use and abuse addictive illegal
drugs and alcohol increase costs for businesses and risk the health and
safety of all employees because-
(A) absenteeism is 66 percent higher among drug
users than individuals who do not use drugs;
(B) health benefit utilization is 300 percent
higher among drug users than individuals who do not use drugs;
(C) 47 percent of workplace accidents are
drug-related;
(D) disciplinary actions are 90 percent higher
among drug users than among individuals who do not use drugs; and
(E) employee turnover is significantly higher
among drug users than among individuals who do not use drugs.(Drug-Free Workplace Act,
1998)
What we have here is nothing less
that the incorporation of bogus data into a federal law in order to
justify mandatory drug testing for government employees in pursuit of the
impossible ‘Drug-Free Workplace.’
Claim: Drug users cause
increased employee turnover.
This
is one claim made for drug testing that may have some merit. Workers who
are weekly users of marijuana or cocaine, or workers who drank to
intoxication weekly (3.8 percent) or who had signs of alcohol dependence,
were more likely to be fired or to resign from jobs than other workers.
Even though weekly use is very uncommon in the working population (3.0
percent of workers are weekly marijuana users, 0.3 percent are weekly
cocaine users, and 3.8 percent drink to intoxication weekly), given an
estimated 19 million full and part time workers we are talking about over
400,000 weekly marijuana users and over 4 million workers drinking to
intoxication weekly.
(Hoffman
and Larison, 1998)
Therefore the association between frequent use and increased turnover
likely does result in some significant cost to businesses to cover worker
replacement. On the other hand, it is not at all clear that drug testing
all workers is the best way to identify this particular, small population.
From the association between frequent use and firing rates we can infer
that frequent drug and heavy alcohol use result in noticeable behavior and
performance changes that lead to termination. This group is identifiable
without the use of drug testing technology, and expense and effort would
be better spent in training supervisors and co-workers to recognized the
signs and symptoms of chronic drug and alcohol abuse than in random drug
testing.
Claim: The decreasing drug test positivity rate proves that drug-testing
programs are effective in reducing workplace drug use.
Well, not exactly. Drug testing proponents have been perhaps most
misleading when they have suggested that the fact that the percentage of
workers testing positive steadily dropped after drug testing programs were
deployed indicates that drug testing programs are effective in reducing
substance abuse. Consider the appended graph (Figure 1) from the Center
for Substance Abuse Prevention that suggest that the random drug testing
of the employees of a major transportation company resulted in a decrease
in the injury rate (virtually identical graphs show the associated
decreases in medical costs and work loss costs associated with those
injuries).
This graphs is misleading because lower positivity rates do not
prove that drug testing is an effective deterrent. The reason for this
becomes clear if we examine another graph (see appended Trends in Drug Use
and Drug Positives, Figure 2. Illicit drug use steadily dropped during the
period in which drug testing was begun and strongly pushed by proponents.
Note this trend clearly began approximately a decade before any routine
workplace drug testing programs existed. The point is that the declining
percentage of positive drug tests in suspicion-less testing programs would
be expected given that national drug use rates declined sharply.
(Gfroerer
et. al., 1997; See also: National Household Survey on Drug Abuse -
1985 Highlights, 1986;National Household Survey on Drug Abuse - 1980
Highlights, 1981)
The
argument that workplace drug testing caused the drop in overall usage
rates is further refuted by the observation that almost identical declines
occurred amongst the high school population over the years 1985 to 1990, a
period of time during which high school students were not subjected to
urine drug screening.
(Rothstein,
1991)
What
can drug-testing technology accomplish?
Drug
tests cannot detect impairment, shed no light on the intensity or
chronicity of use and are entirely useless in distinguishing
non-problematic recreational use from use which leads to medical,
behavioral or social consequences. Drug tests detect metabolites of
illicit substances and only tell us that a substance may have been
consumed at some point in the past. It is a very poor tool for detecting
very recent use. For example, a urine drug test administered to workers on
arrival at the workplace would more likely be positive in a person who had
smoked marijuana three days earlier than it would a person who snorted
cocaine in the parking lot and then walked in the door. And alcohol, a
substance that is far more widely abused than are illicit drugs, is
completely ignored.
Workplace drug testing programs mostly detect marijuana users. This
is true both because marijuana is by far the most commonly used illicit
drug and because the tested-for metabolites of marijuana are detectable
for weeks after the last use compared to hours or days for other
substances. An analysis of the drug testing programs of eleven large firms
confirms that the overwhelming majority of positive findings are for
marijuana. On average, 78 percent of positive drugs tests are for
marijuana, with a range of 67 percent (Southern Pacific Railroad) to 93
percent (Utah Power and Light).
(Maltby,
1999)
See also Figure 3, which shows positivity rates by drug category as a
percentage of all workplace tests submitted to Quest Labs (over 5.2
million tests) from 1997 through 2001. The proportion of tests positive
for marijuana dwarfs all other drugs by an order of magnitude.
The accuracy of drug tests can be subverted by a wide variety of
means from dilution to substitution of another person’s urine, to
ingestion of products to speed up elimination of drug metabolites or taken
in order to introduce similar chemicals so as to invalidate the results.
Direct observation of the employee urinating can reduce tampering by
dilution and substitution but increases the intrusiveness of the
procedure. To reduce the problem of legal substances being interpreted as
drugs of abuse, employees are required to report all recently used
over-the-counter and prescription medications. This is a particularly
odious side effect of drug testing programs because it forces employees to
reveal information about what medications they are taking to their
employers (who might very well also be the providers of their medical
insurance).
Finally there is the very real problem of “False
Positives” which we will not consider here except to say that when
weighed against an intrusive technology widely deployed the overall
efficacy of which has never been established, any harm done to
innocents will tip the scales rather severely against drug testing as
unjustifiably harmful.
Drug testing is not a
victimless crime – Exactly who is harming whom?
Are the
people detected in workplace drug testing programs “the problem?”
Conversely, does removing them from the workforce or mandating them into
substance abuse treatment result in a safer more productive workplace? In
1994, a committee of the venerable National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
published a report entitled “Under the Influence? Drugs and the American
Workplace,” an exhaustive analysis of the body of empirical research to
date in order to make a rational assessment of the costs and benefits of
workplace drug testing. They concluded that,
“[The] data… do not provide clear evidence of
the deleterious effects of drugs other than alcohol on the safety
and other job performance indicators… It is often assumed, rather than
proven that those who use alcohol and other drugs away from work will also
do so on the job. While performance decrements attributable to alcohol
emerge clearly in laboratory studies, decrements attributable to marijuana
are harder to find.”
(Normand,
Lempert, and O'Brien, 1994)
We have seen that the
overwhelming proportions of positive drug tests are for marijuana. It is
also true that most workers who use marijuana do so occasionally and
moderately. Hoffmann and Larison’s analysis of the 1994 National
Household Survey data found:
“Over half the workers had never used marijuana
and over three-quarters had never used cocaine in their lives. [A]
majority of those who had ever used marijuana or cocaine [last] did so
over three years ago. Only a small percentage reported weekly use of
marijuana (3.0 percent) or cocaine (0.3 percent) in the last year.”
(Hoffman
and Larison, 1998)
Drug testing programs mostly catch occasional, moderate marijuana
users and it is very difficult to cast this group as “the problem” or
“the enemy.” There is a wealth of evidence that occasional marijuana
users are similar to non-users on most measures.
(Zimmer
and Morgan, 1997)
For example, studies have failed to demonstrate a difference between
marijuana users and non-users in career aspirations, grade-point averages,
and extra-curricular activities. Marijuana users have scores similar to
non-users on cognitive tests. “In laboratory and field studies,
marijuana users are found to work as hard or harder than non-users.
Marijuana users earn slightly higher wages than non-users. In short, there
is nothing about marijuana users that would lead one to suspect them of
being dysfunctional or unproductive workers.”
(Maltby,
1999)
Drug Testing is expensive
To
be cost effective, it would have to be demonstrated that drug testing
programs could identify a significant number of drug abusers, that is drug
users with behavioral, social, and / or medical consequences of their use,
who would only be identified much later or not at all except for the
existence of the testing program. Unfortunately, as we have discussed,
drug test positives tend to be occasional, asymptomatic, marijuana users
not dangerous, impaired chronic drug users.
The cost per positive drug test is very high. In 1990 the federal
government spent approximately 11.7 million dollars to test workers in
some 38 federal agencies. Of 29,000 tests administered, only 153 were
positive or about 0.5 percent. The cost per positive drug test to the
taxpayer is therefore about $77,000.
(Maltby,
1999)
But because drug testing can only detect past drug use, not drug abuse or
drug impairment, the real cost is even higher. For example, if we make the
ridiculously conservative assumption that 1 out of 5 of drug users is
addicted or impaired, then the useful-positive rate drops to 0.1 percent
and the cost per useful positive test jumps to roughly $385,000. If we
assume that one in ten users is addicted or impaired (still a very
conservative assumption), the useful-positive rate drops to 0.05 percent
and the cost spirals to almost $765,000 per drug abuser detected.
Suspicion-less
drug testing is unconstitutional
The Courts will not interfere with a private
company’s right to administer pre-employment or random
(“suspicion-less”) drug tests because prospective employees have the
choice to apply for work elsewhere, and because the Fourth Amendment
affords protection only from unreasonable governmental search.
Nonetheless, suspicion-less governmental drug testing is unconstitutional
under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Post-accident (also known as “for cause”) drug testing is not prohibited. The Fourth
Amendment guarantees the "right of the people to be secure in their
persons ... against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
(U.S. Constitution,
Amendment IV, 1791)
The Constitution
requires the government to obtain a warrant supported by probable cause to
search a person, the only exception being when the government has
demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Court that it has a special need
for a search, such as protecting public safety. “In
this case a court will uphold the search if it is found
"reasonable" after balancing the physical intrusion against the
governmental interest at stake.”
(Fish,
2002)
The
Supreme Court has upheld Department of Transportation regulations
mandating the post-accident drug testing and it held that Customs
employees seeking promotions or transfers to positions involving the use
of firearms could be compelled to submit to random drug testing granting
the government’s claim of ‘special need’ by finding that Customs had an ‘almost
unique mission’ as the nations first line of defense against drug
smuggling. However, the Supreme Court has NOT sanctioned suspicion-less
drug testing except in the context of a governmental assertion of special
need. It has specifically refused to allow drug testing if the government
fails to show a special need to test. For example,
“In
Chandler v. Miller, the Court struck down a Georgia statute that required
candidates for elected office to be drug tested within thirty days prior
to qualifying for nomination or election. The Court found that Georgia
failed to show a “special need” that was substantial enough to
override a candidate’s privacy interest.”
(Fish,
2002)
The
Court has held that the government has a legitimate special interest that
workers involved in public safety positions and those in dangerous and
skilled activities, so called “safety-sensitive employees,” not be
drug users. For example, many courts have found firefighters to be such
special class of worker and have upheld random drug testing on this basis.
However, “it is important for fire departments to recognize that not all
of their employees may be tested for drug use at all times. As such, a
department policy requiring that every employee [clerk and firefighter
alike] undergo drug testing may be found unconstitutional.”
(Fish,
2002)
This is the crux of the constitutional problem with suspicion-less drug
testing: you cannot claim a special interest in everyone.
Similarly, a Georgia law requiring all applicants for state
employment to submit to and pass a drug test was held to be
unconstitutional.
(Georgia Association of Educators v. Harris, 1990)
We have carefully traced the origins and true meaning of the data
behind these claims and, except as noted above, they are utterly without
merit.
Rates of drug use are
low – Why don’t we all just declare victory and go home?
Drug (including alcohol) use is not equivalent with drug abuse. By
definition, drug abuse is drug use that causes problems or harm to self or
others. We have seen that chronic, frequent, immoderate drug and alcohol
use does indeed cause problems in the workplace, but this group is
underrepresented in the work force and represents a very small minority.
There is no “drug problem” in the workplace that a
mass-screening program like suspicion-less drug testing could possibly
impact. This is not surprising given an understanding of the natural
history of substance abuse and dependence. First, frequent users of hard
drugs such as heroin and cocaine are unlikely to be productive, reliable
workers. Second, the dramatic decrease in national drug use over the past
two decades means that there are fewer and fewer drug users of any sort in
the national labor pool. Most workers who use drugs are occasional,
moderate users and there is no evidence that associates this group with
any safety or financial consequences to their employers. Why don’t we
all just declare victory and go home?
Problems caused by drug testing
In our
consideration of the claims of drug testing proponents we briefly
discussed a methodologically rigorous productivity study by Shepard and
Clifton. When they compared companies that had drug testing programs to
companies that did not they found that companies that drug tested had a
statistically significant 20 percent lower productivity.
(Shepard
and Clifton, 1998)
There are several reasons why this might be so.
First,
besides the high price of the initial procedure itself, drug testing
programs generate a myriad of more hidden costs. There are the opportunity
costs of both the employees who administer the tests and those who are
tested. There is the cost of confirmatory testing on all positive
specimens and this is absolutely necessary given the significant
false-positive rate. There is the cost of retaining a Medical Review
Officer to process all positive tests, and if a worker resigns or is fired
as a result of a drug testing program, there is the cost of replacing her
and of training her replacement. If a formal grievance follows, a cascade
of opportunity costs will be the result and these must also be considered.
Second,
there is evidence that drug testing discourages highly qualified workers
from applying. Surveys have shown that the minority of the public that is
opposed to drug testing is as high as 40 percent.
(Califano, 1982)
“According to a report from the R. Brinkley Smithers Institute for
Alcohol-Related Workplace Studies… some employers ‘have dropped
pre-employment screening because it unduly hindered their ability to
recruit employees with the proper skills.’”
(Maltby,
1999)
Third,
drug testing very likely has a negative impact on worker morale and
loyalty. Several surveys have shown that workers view drug testing,
especially suspicion-less drug testing, negatively. Shepard cites a survey
published in 1990 by Hanson that found that only 16 percent of railroad
workers, for example, believe random drug testing is fair. “If drug
tests contribute to a negative view towards the company, then workers may
not contribute as much in return, or they may seek employment elsewhere;
some workers may not seek or accept jobs from companies with drug testing
programs.”
(Shepard
and Clifton, 1998)
Morale is also affected because many workers find the process of urine
drug testing degrading and embarrassing, and because they fear the
potentially devastating consequences of a false-positive test.
Fourth,
drug testing could lower productivity if it caused marijuana users to
switch to more impairing substances like alcohol, which is not tested for,
or to more harmful drugs with a much smaller window of detectability like
cocaine or heroin. “Some evidence of substitution effects have been
found by other researchers.”
(Shepard
and Clifton, 1998)
There is an alternative…
There
are alternatives to drug testing that are more cost effective and which do
not raise issues of justice or privacy. EAP programs that include training
supervisors and co-workers to identify and refer workers who might be
having performance-impairing problems are a tried and true way to confront
this issue in a manner consistent with the human relations movement ethos.
Studies by the NAS and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
have shown that such programs can be effective in improving the
performance of referred workers and that managers are eager to spend time
in this sort of training.
(Maltby,
1999)
Careful reference checking is another well-established methodology to
screen out job applicants who have a drug problem by focusing on the
applicant’s prior job performance. Finally, fitness-for-duty testing
which measures motor coordination and alertness, while too time consuming
and expensive for general use, is a reasonable alternative to drug testing
in truly safety-sensitive occupations.
Suspicion-less
drug testing is the antithesis of everything the human relations movement
in labor management stands for. It is a paternalistic and degrading
technology that establishes a de-facto adversarial relationship between
employers and employees in companies that practice it. We have seen that
drug testing targets a group of employees, casual marijuana users, which
are particularly unlikely to be a source of workplace problems and that it
is utterly ineffective in detecting acute or chronic hard drug use or any
degree of alcohol abuse. It may be an effective symbol that an employer is
“tough on drugs” but it is morally wrong to trash the individual
liberties of the many, and cause harm to innocents, in order that the few
be punished in pursuit of making a symbolic point.
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Hoffman, J. and Larison, C. (1998). Drugs and the Workplace.
Chicago: Nation Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago,
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2.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (1996).
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Industry Categories. Rockville, MD.: U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services.
3.
1994 American
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Survey. New York: American Management Association.
4.
National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab (Judge Scalia
dissenting) (1989). National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab (Judge
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Maltby, L. L
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(Available: |
