Would you/do you submit to drug tests at work?

[Floyd Eye]

Why are the two linked? That's the real question. I have no problem whatsoever with testing for under the influence. They can test for under the influence, AND it costs less. I used to work for a company in which I was the only one who didn't drink. Everyone else drank rather heavily every night. I outperformed all of them. Part-time toking has zero effect upon full-time job performance. Employment should be conditional upon job performance and under the influence, not private time.

AGAIN, if someone smokes in their free time, why don't they deserve a good paying job if their performance is above and beyond all others?

Man, life is not fair. We aren't even discussing fair here. Eventually it may be necessary to grow up and be accountable for your own situation in life.

The act of smoking pot on your own time does NOT in my mind make you less deserving of anything. Remember, I was a smoker for 30+ years. It is the act of not being willing or able to quit in order to maintain a good paying job that makes me say you don't deserve it.

Let's put it this way. I have a company and I am willing to pay you 70k a year. I require a pre-employment drug screen and I also regularly screen employees for drug use. It is MY company and I have the right to decide for myself what kind of people I choose to hire ( within the framework of the law of course). Now you have a choice. You can sell you r bong collection and have a good job or you can keep on smoking and have a crappy job. The choice is yours. The fact is if you are not willing to give up the herb for 70k a year, you don't deserve the job. Period. Sorry.

 

[1958Bassman]

The problem is that they don't test for under the influence, and they can, using a saliva test. They are testing for past use, trying to be the moral police. What happens when they start refusing to hire people because they are obese? Their argument being that obese people have more health issues. Their added health issues drive up health insurance costs for the company as well as the other employees. However, being obese does not automatically mean reduced job performance, and they should not be punished for it.

What people do after they clock out is their own business. Is free time is owned by the company, too?

Testing for being under the influence is an even more slippery slope- for this, the police need probable cause and an employer would need this, too, unless they state their policy before a prospective hire comes on board- if they agree to it, they don't have much ground to stand on if they decide they don't want to submit. Then, what happens when someone comes up clean when they have been singled out (hopefully, not publicly)? Does the company just apologize and send them on their way, with no possibility of hard feelings? I doubt that will happen. For someone who doesn't drink or use drugs, I think it would be a pretty large insult and I think it should be possible to trust people. However, the older I get, the less I see people who should be trusted.

You're right- there's no guarantee that performance is ALWAYS tied to obesity but the #1 cause of lost time at work is back problems. Heart disease is the #1 killer of Americans. Sleep apnea kills many people and causes impaired function once the person is "awake", although being "awake" would be a luxury and this is coming from my own past experience. Alcohol use makes apnea worse, too. Does employing alcohol/drug users and obese people cost a company? Damn right it does.

In my own discussions with others about this, some of the people who are the strongest objectors seem to think they have the right to do what they want, on their time, without any consideration for any problems they may cause for the company. I know of people who smoke pot and drink like fishes, yet they do their jobs well and are in positions of authority and high responsibility. Have any lost their jobs because of this off-hours activity? Yes, they have. One was driving his boss' car because the boss was too drunk and he totaled it. Another was burning the candle on both ends and it affected his performance after a while. Some jobs require security clearance because they involve sensitive locations and information. One of my friends works for a company that builds nuclear power plants, works on many local/state/federal government projects and the federal jobs make it necessary for him to clear a periodic NSA background check. I was interviewed by someone form the Department of Justice a few months ago, for his most recent check. Knowing that they probably ask questions when they already know the answers, it's not a good idea to lie about this.

For a small company that doesn't carry some risk because of pot smoking or drinking, it's unlikely that much damage will come from it, other than maybe a retailer whose alcoholic/coke freak employee is a compulsive liar, thief and stole cash from the register and the owner didn't fire him because A) they had known each other for a long time, B) the guy knew how to lie to the owner in a way that was convincing and C), when he was hired after the 1st time, he told the owner he was sober and it wouldn't happen again. The fact that he was doing a lot of coke at the time wasn't revealed and even when he would be all twitchy, he blamed it on the coffee. When he was twitchy AND sweaty, acting like a complete bozo, he blamed it on moldy rye bread (the mold causes reactions kind of like being on LSD and the owner knew this, too). The fact that the rest of us KNEW he was stealing got no appropriate reaction from the owner. We caught cash thefts immediately and he still wasn't fired.

Craig Ferguson did a standup show and was talking about being in rehab. He explained "an alcoholic will steal your purse and lie about it but a junkie will steal your purse and help you find it".

 

[deeptubes]

It isn't owned by the company.
You are right. It's just that what you do on your free time can affect others. That's your responsibility to see. Standing behind your "rights" is also admirable.

You have a gig that will put you in the national spotlight. Your band has worked years to get here. Your drummer decides to go to the beach with his new girlfriend and miss the final practice before the gig.

He has a right. By objecting you are trying to control his personal life.

Or, do you expect him to consider the needs of the band first in this case?

Different scenario. Practice time is work time. That would be like not showing up for work. Work would be directly affected. I'd be more mad that he wasn't considerate enough to give us a call. Otherwise, as long as he performed well, I wouldn't care. I am all for under the influence testing. But, what someone does that has no effect on company time is their business and no one else's.

 

[1958Bassman]

Couldn't the same thing be said about an alcoholic? there are no guarantees that any person that uses any substance will or won't use at work. Isn't that what the rest of the background check should establish (ie has he had problems at work before, arrests, patterns of irresponsible behaviors)?

Wouldn't a responsible pothead be as responsible as any other responsible adult?

Can they still be considered 'responsible' if they're doing something that's illegal? Regardless of the fact that many think it shouldn't be illegal, the fact is, it's illegal. The fact that so many in the government have placed hemp in the same category as the cannabis sativa used as a drug for almost 100 years because of their ignorance aside, until it's legalized/decriminalized, it won't be OK and even then, if a company doesn't want it, they can keep it out.

 

[Vinz Clortho]

It really depends on the job. I have been both an employer and an employee so I see both sides clearly.
An employer has the right to hire and keep who they want for whatever reason they deem important.
If your job involves risk to you or (even more importantly) others, I would actually prefer my employer tested.
If you have a slacker-type job where there is no safety issues, I wouldn't care how much you partied the night before as long as you can still do your job!

I was a locksmith for many years, and drug testing was part of the job, I didn't have a problem with it.

I was also a DJ in strip club before that and drinking & partaking was almost part of the job! I didn't have a problem with that either!!!!

I was able to roll with both. If smoking weed is more important to you than a particular job, go find a different job.

If a certain job is more important to you than smoking weed, quit smoking. It's really quite simple.

This man speaks the honest-to-God truth. In the same way that using drugs is a personal liberty (a moral if not entirely legal one) it is also an employer's personal liberty to test you, and if you don't like it you have the liberty to find another job. It's what makes America great

What does state law have to do with being responsible? All of my bills are paid. I maintain my house. I maintain my cars. There is food in my fridge. My house is nowhere near threat of forclosure. I don't smoke before work. I don't smoke at work. I don't drink. I turned down an out of state job that included a 250% pay raise so that my 2 year old daughter could grow up in a nice house a block from the beach, in a good neighborhood, and go to good schools. I am responsible to the NTH degree, and my priorities are straight. If I choose to smoke a little in the evening on the weekends, it doesn't make me a dredge of society.

And as I have previously stated, illegal doesn't mean immoral, and immoral doesn't mean illegal. When it's no longer illegal in the US, will your views change? It's only a matter of time until all of these debates are moot.

I will be the first to appreciate what you're saying but also the first to tell you that you are sadly in the minority. I have a few friends that are happy, productive, weed-smoking members of society, and one of them I NEVER would have guessed partook until he told me since he's so physicaly active, excels at his job, is motivated, etc. By the same token I know at least ten times as many dope smokers that get blazed and don't do jack shat with their lives, and when you try to engage them critically they simply aren't all there. If I ever for some reason decided to try smoking weed I get the distinct feeling that I would fall into this category, so I don't.

I used to be hardline against drugs in general (but not uber militant straightedge since I kept my opinion largely to myself), then in the beginning of college I was all about legalization. Now that it's been three years and I've been saddled with adult responsibilities like work, bills, debt, and so forth and I've seen everybody from 17 year olds to 50 year olds make objectively-stupid life decisions that pertain to or are a direct consequence of marijuana (and occasionally second-tier drugs as well) I've come to the conclusion that they aren't appropriate for the populace at large. I still think it should be legalized, but this stems more from my desire to profit from the 'tards that are smart and educated enough to know better but stupid enough to make poor decisions and keep doing and my overall semi-Libertarian perspective than my desire to get high.

If you want to know what the problem is with drug legalization, find a local college campus and go to a NORML meeting. A few of these clowns were wandering around my dorm once handing out flyers that read "Not Stoner as in Lazy: Stoner as in F*ck You!: An Examination of Marijuana Stereotypes." No amount of rum could erase the brazen idiocy that had been permanently etched into my brain from reading that, and as I poured rum and coke #3 I wept for my responsible friends and cursed the types of idiots that wrote that flyer and stood in the way of the legalization movement.

 

[deeptubes]

Can they still be considered 'responsible' if they're doing something that's illegal?

In the 50s, black people sat at "whites only" lunch counters. They were breaking the law. Were they irresponsible?

 

[Floyd Eye]

In the 50s, black people sat at "whites only" lunch counters. They were breaking the law. Were they irresponsible?

Nice straw man. Irrelevant, completely.

 

[Vinz Clortho]

Nice straw man. Irrelevant, completely.

^^^ Exactly my point two posts up.

 

[deeptubes]

Nice straw man. Irrelevant, completely.

Did you not read the blanket statement question this is a response to?

 

[Floyd Eye]

Did you not read the blanket statement question this is a response to?

Yeah, but I'm not sure how a response comparing the illegality of drugs and the illegality of PEOPLE is relevant.

 

[deeptubes]

Yeah, but I'm not sure how a response comparing the illegality of drugs and the illegality of PEOPLE is relevant.

If illegal equals irresponsible, then the breaking of any law is an irresponsible act. The example I used debunks that concept. Illegal does not equal irresponsible.

BTW, the people themselves were not illegal, but their actions were.

 

[Lonesomedave]

Nice straw man. Irrelevant, completely.

oh no, not irrelevant at all...right to the point...


law is law and morality is morality and the two often have nothing to do with each other...

it used to illegal to drink in this country...

it used to be illegal for black people to marry whites (in some states)....

it was illegal at one time in Germany to be a jew....

it is still illegal in some countries to exercise freedom of speech (if you say something the government does not like)....

and on and on.

the law has nothing (in some cases) to do with what's right or wrong....it has to do with either politics or the naked will of the powers that be.

let me ask a series of questions:

is alcohol a more dangerous drug than pot?

does alcohol cause infinitely more harm to society than pot.

was Bama's damage (from many posts back) caused by a pot smoker or a drunk?

did Bama have alcohol testing in place?

did the drunk still slip through the cracks and cause the damage we've referred to ?

for those of you who say "well it's illegal to smoke so as a responsible person you should stop", how many of you drink?

is the trend now toward legalization?

what do you suggest as a means of stopping this discrimination, once your state legalizes. (or do you propose any change at all?)

the red herring is those who want to say "it's illegal, end of story",,,,no, it's end of story only for those who make the decision not to smoke BECAUSE it is illegal, not for society.

here is my position...alcohol is much more dangerous to society than pot, causes much more harm, more missed days of work, more spousal abuse, and more accidents at work...yet is perfectly legal, and likely to remain so since we have already been down that road.

since we approve this much more dangerous drug for people off duty, we should do the same for the less dangerous drug off-duty...very simple.

and since alcohol is the far more dangerous, damaging drug, all you drinkers out there should be in the camp of "legalize pot now"...even if only out of simple fairness.

what i bet though, is that while you drink (ie do the more dangerous drug), you don't use pot, and therefore don't care about fairness or anything else....i don't do it, so screw 'em

well, you have the right....to the name HYPOCRITE

 

[deeptubes]

Thanks, Dave. Was growing weary of holding down the fort alone!

 

[Floyd Eye]

Pretty sure I said that law and morality were often two separate issues. Still, comparing the treatment of blacks in the 50s to the legality of drugs is not even in the same ball park.

 

[1958Bassman]

Drug testing doesn't stop employees from doing drugs. They stop employees from being able to pass drug tests as easily. There is a difference.

I'm not advocating drug use, or violence in the workplace, or unsafe working conditions. I'm against those things as well. I'm advocating privacy rights.

Not in all cases, but in this case yes. I believe that the many, many employees' privacy concerns should take priority over the concerns of the single employer. Adjust as needed with high risk occupations, and to relieve employers of undue burden from litigation through appropriate legislation.

You're right- it doesn't stop drug use but it can weed out the people who won't submit to the test or stop, no pun intended. If someone stops because they want a particular job and know that the company does random testing, that's up to them. If they want to try their luck and apply anyway, that's up to them. It's like anything else- tell someone to stop doing something and they'll usually resist.

The problem with privacy rights is how far they can be allowed to extend. If the person stays in a private setting, I think they should be able to do anything they want- if they want to do things that are harmful to themselves, fine, and this is something that is a sore point for me, considering the fact that I have known a lot of people who committed suicide. Some didn't do it privately and it definitely had an impact on those who were there.

As much as I liked to party in the past, I don't feel that a single person has any right to do anything that will cause a problem for another person or company. People doing their job as well as possible and not "as well as possible under the circumstances" is the distinction. People going about their lives without negatively impacting someone else is what I consider 'responsible'.

Re: your comment about the many, many employees' privacy concerns vs a single employers' concerns, who ever said working for a company is supposed to be a democracy? Employees don't set the goals of a company, the products/services offered or how the company is run. They certainly have input- if the owner(s) are complete DBs and constantly do stupid things/make stupid decisions, the employees will leave. Some intentionally damage the company. All will be unhappy but they'll dance on the grave of the company when it folds. However, if a vote is taken and the result is that the company folds, regardless of the owner's desires and intent, who wins? The employees won the vote, but everyone lost, in the short OR long run. They should also have input WRT design/idea implementation and improvements but again, there's no way a company should relinquish any control over their destiny to employees who don't want to give up habits that could cause damage to others.

Here's an example of what could happen if drugs/alcohol cause a small company to fail, with the acknowledgement that some drugs help people to "think outside the box". Two small groupls of people started working on projects that are related, but not exactly the same. One is a physical product and the other is something the physical item uses. Being small companies in the '70s, drug use was almost a certainty and at that time, if they had failed early, it wouldn't have made much of a difference at the time, but the rippling effects have been absolutely massive on a global scale and if they had failed at the start, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion now.

These companies had ideas for products that hadn't been utilized to the current extent because the people who controlled most of this industry didn't see a need for it, so they started in apartments and a garage. The ones who controlled this at th e time lacked the foresight and imagination to see why anyone outside of industry or certain businesses would need them and to be honest, not many small companies or individuals, schools, offices or local governments could have afforded one as they were at the time. They made a few things happen through a bit of trickery and deception, but not really a criminal act. Fast forward a few years and people saw the first products come out. Primitive when compared to what's available today, but futuristic to many and the possibilities were yet to be tapped. FF even further and we start to see these products in everyday life. The wealthy/adventurous may have been the first to buy, but the prices came down so quickly that soon, people bought them by the millions. Families had them, schools began to use them, offices and companies began to exploit their capabilities and whole industries sprung up across the globe, supporting and exploiting this product. Competitors came up with their own versions, competition caused the price to drop and innovation caused new and wonderful improvements, creating the need for millions of jobs to be filled, adding business to companies that sell/handle materials, shipping, manufacturing, packaging, legal work, accounting, employment agencies and anything else you can think of. Along the way, they created whole industries and have made fundamental changes in the lives of almost every person on the planet, in some way. These two companies have created more millionaires and billionaires than any others, created products that were inconceivable just a few years before and as we know, people with lots of money want things and have varied interests, so they build houses, buy and start their own companies and ask "Why can't we make this?, Why can't we do this?, Why can't we control this?" in some new and interesting way.

What if Apple and Microsoft had failed because someone decided that drinking or doing drugs was more important than making the companies work?

 

[1958Bassman]

In my opinion, if you don't want something, deserving it is moot. If you don't want the job, keep on smoking weed. If you do, then quit. It's really that simple.

Exactly. Too many people think they deserve one thing or another. A chance of getting a job isn't deserved, it's earned. If someone meets the qualifications, the best candidate should win. If someone just won't do what is required or expected, they need to realize the job isn't necessarily theirs.

 

[Lonesomedave]

1958bassman:

can't disagree with your post, except to add...


we are not talking about coming to work drunk or high...that is a red herring.

we are talking about what people do in their off hours...have a drink, smoke a doob...both absolutely irrelevant to coming to work intoxicated.

develop a test to see if the person is intoxicated RIGHT NOW, and i will be in there with you.

we already have such a test for alcohol...and look how much good it did BAMA (read his post above)

NO ONE IS ADVOCATING ALLOWING PEOPLE TO WORK INTOXICATED....i don't know how many times that must be said before people on the other side of this debate will stop bringing up that straw man.

what we are advocating is treat pot smokers the way we now treat alcohol users...which is basically leave' em alone until their use actually or potentially causes harm.

 

[deeptubes]

My view on this is actually rather simple. If you go to work wasted, you should be fired. Period. If you don't go to work wasted, you shouldn't be fired for what you did in the privacy of your home last weekend. Period.

Very simple.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

What if Apple and Microsoft had failed because someone decided that drinking or doing drugs was more important than making the companies work?

I'm pretty sure Steve Jobs has admitted several times to smoking and taking LSD. It didn't seem to stop him.

 

[Floyd Eye]

1958bassman:

can't disagree with your post, except to add...


we are not talking about coming to work drunk or high...that is a red herring.

we are talking about what people do in their off hours...have a drink, smoke a doob...both absolutely irrelevant to coming to work intoxicated.

develop a test to see if the person is intoxicated RIGHT NOW, and i will be in there with you.

we already have such a test for alcohol...and look how much good it did BAMA (read his post above)

NO ONE IS ADVOCATING ALLOWING PEOPLE TO WORK INTOXICATED....i don't know how many times that must be said before people on the other side of this debate will stop bringing up that straw man.

what we are advocating is treat pot smokers the way we now treat alcohol users...which is basically leave' em alone until their use actually or potentially causes harm.

I don't disagree with this in theory. The problem is that pesky freedom thing. As a business owner I have the right to choose whether or not I want a drug user as an employee. If you take that right away from me, you have just changed from capitalism to, uh, something else.