i do believe that if one will be operating heavy machinery where a miscue could put others at danger, especially fatal, then one's background into drug use should be investigated. i would almost immediately disqualify anyone who's been arrested for drug-related offenses including dwi based on the explanation of the offense. i would also want to know if there has been a history of addiction. i also believe that if a private corporation wants to test their employees, that is their choice and the government shouldn't have to protect drug users from discrimination. i'm not sure how uniform drug testing policies are across the various local, state and federal governments, but i'm sure there are some that drug test all employees. i know that california does not. duh. this is just ridiculous, however. i'm not surprised that people would think this is a good idea. it took the whole aig bonus issue to silence blaming of the poor for this whole mess by republicans. they needed to re-tool their argument so here you go. it'd be nice if they'd even try to hide it. why not randomly drug test employees of all corporations who have received government money? why only the poor? we know the answer to that one. personal responsibility only applies to a certain population of society.
Im pretty sure these execs did submit to drug tests and background checks before starting their jobs. Maybe random tests are a bad idea, but giving them an initial test to qualify for benefits I think is a good idea.
I always thought drug testing was standard procedure for financial companies. They even drug test for easy jobs. One of my first jobs after high school was as a file clerk for American General, which got bought by AIG. I could have been high every day and still put papers in a folder. It was company policy, so I had to head over to Quest Diagnostics and pee in a cup.
Sounds like a good idea -- i'd like to know more of the details just to be sure, but from what i've read so far there is no reason why this shouldn't be put into practice.
There's also the benefit of drug users quitting drugs getting a job and getting food stamps, improving their lives and taking care of their families. Of course, this is all an evil conspiracy that discriminates against crack addicts and drug dealers, so it won't happen.
Hey I think we should have a war on crime like we want to win it. Hire 10 million security guards with full federal benefits and health insurance. It would cut down on crime and be better than merely drug testing.
Excellent post, RM9... I mean Groog... ARGH!!! Anyway, I don't agree with all of it, but I agree with this terrific comment - "this is just ridiculous, however. i'm not surprised that people would think this is a good idea. it took the whole aig bonus issue to silence blaming of the poor for this whole mess by republicans. they needed to re-tool their argument so here you go. it'd be nice if they'd even try to hide it. why not randomly drug test employees of all corporations who have received government money? why only the poor? we know the answer to that one. personal responsibility only applies to a certain population of society" Everyone should understand that I spent a decent chunk of my life with "drug testing" not even being mentioned. You filled out an application, you interviewed, the person thought you were right for the job, or didn't, and they took you at your word whether you used drugs or would use them on the job. One time, around 1970, I applied for a position that required a lie detector test. I thought the test would be fun and wasn't all that interested in the job, although it wasn't terribly far from I lived in the Montrose area. It was for an assembly line job, a second job, when I was earning money as fast as I could for another trip overseas. It was at an ice cream factory. Putting Eskimo Pies, Dreamsicles and the like into cardboard boxes, so they could be moved to a giant freezer that was kept at 20 degrees below zero (and I'm not kidding... I went into it from time to time and any moisture on my beard would start to freeze within seconds.. boxes of fudgesicles would still be frozen when I got home, after a 20 minute bike ride during the summer. I still can't stand fudgesicles. My friends would come over and gorge themselves on a cornicorpia of ice cream bars). For this incredibly difficult job, I had to take a lie detector test. Can you believe it? This was when I discovered that you can beat lie detectors, because I did. I was into TM and that sort of thing back then and went into a kind of a trance. Stared at a spot on the wall and just sailed through it. Literally and figuratively. To my surprise, I found the experience very demeaning. I felt like a criminal. I swore then that I would never take one again, and I didn't. I feel exactly the same way about drug tests. You are considered guilty until you "prove" your innocence by submitting to the test. Refuse the test and they refuse the job, no matter how qualified you are, no matter how spotless your record is (and mine is spotless). I'm appalled that so many seem to take them for granted. A person can drink a fifth of Scotch the night before coming to work, be incredibly hung over, and it doesn't matter a bit. You are far more likely to screw up something from doing that then you are from doing a "drug" that grows in nature the night before. Hypocrisy abounds. I'm sorry, Mr. Clutch, but that just made me laugh out loud. You have no idea!
Do you know how much this would cost the country? Then you would have the lost productivity of taking tens of millions of people out of their jobs and lives and putting them into rehab when most of them simply do not need it. Drug testing is an expensive process that does between very little and nothing to deter drug use.
Except that it would cost more money to administer the drug testing than we would save in having the people in question off the welfare rolls. Stupid idea.
you have no idea if that is true. The idea here is to get people off of drugs. They already work for welfare (somewhat) why not go all the way. If the purpose of welfare is to make them prepared to be employed, having them be able to pass a drug test is a good start.
Yes, I do know it based on studies and statistics that have shown pretty conclusively that drug testing is expensive to administer and not effective at reducing drug use.
You cannot have it both ways. It will either get them to stop using drugs (a good thing and worth the extra cost) or it will drop many welfare drug addicts. You would have to know what these numbers are to make a determination if it will increase or decrease costs. And even if it does increase costs that will mean a positive result because we will know our money is not going to addicts.
"Few employers have used impairment testing, and information concerning that experience is very limited and extremely difficult to obtain. The available information, however, indicates that impairment testing is not just a better answer on paper, but in practice as well. Employers who have used impairment testing consistently found that it reduced accidents and was accepted by employees. Moreover, these employers consistently found that it was superior to urine testing in achieving both of these objectives." Source: National Workrights Institute, "Impairment Testing: Does It Work?" (Princeton, NJ: NWI, undated), from the web at http://www.workrights.org/issue_drugtest/dt_impairment_testing.html, last accessed March 17, 2004. In a study of high tech industries, researchers found 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... Both pre-employment and random testing of workers are found to be associated with lower levels of productivity." Source: Shepard, Edward M., and Thomas J. Clifton, Drug Testing and Labor Productivity: Estimates Applying a Production Function Model, Institute of Industrial Relations, Research Paper No. 18, Le Moyne University, Syracuse, NY (1998), p. 1. One reason drug testing is not used by some employers is the cost. One electronics manufacturer estimated that the cost of finding each positive result was $20,000. After testing 10,000 employees he only found 49 positive results. A congressional committee estimated that the cost of each positive in government testing was $77,000 because the positive rate was only 0.5%. Source: "Workplace Substance Abuse Testing, Drug Testing: Cost and Effect," Cornell/Smithers Report, Utica, New York: Cornell University (January 1992). Researchers on a grant from NIDA found that school drug testing has no impact on student drug use. According to the researchers, "Does drug testing prevent or inhibit student drug use? Members of the Supreme Court appear to believe it does. However, among the eighth-, 10th-, and 12-grade students surveyed in this study, school drug testing was not associated with either the prevalence or the frequency of student mar1juana use, or of other illicit drug use. Nor was drug testing of athletes associated with lower-than-average mar1juana and other illicit drug use by high school male athletes. Even among those who identified themselves as fairly experienced mar1juana users, drug testing also was not associated with either the prevalence or the frequency of mar1juana or other illicit drug use." Source: Yamaguchi, Ryoko, Lloyd D. Johnston & Patrick M. O'Malley, Relationship Between Student Illicit Drug Use and School Drug-Testing Policies," Journal of School Health, April 2003, Vol. 73, No. 4, p. 164.
What do people who support this policy propose to do about providing food to the children of food stamp recipients that test positive for drug use?
For the most part, we will only "know" that drug users are not using marijauna, which is close to the only drug that stays in a user's system for a significant amount of time. Opiates (morphine, heroin) are only detectable for 1-4 days, cocaine for 1-3 days, and alcohol for only 24 hours. There are some barbiturates that can remain present in urine for up to a week, but the only deterrent you would get is for the people who use what I would consider to be the safest drug out there. IOW, the heroin junkie and the crackhead would be able to continue to receive their checks AND use their drugs by staying clean for 2-4 days a month. THOSE are the people that drug testing should be targeted at, but they are not the people that would be affected by this policy.
Seems like there would be even more people who trade in food stamps for money to buy alcohol and cigarettes. Guess they won't be caught.
My employer (source of income) implemented a drug policy. I wanted to keep my source of income so I said great, test me. Welfare recipients would do likewise I think. I doubt it does any good and it will cost more money so as a fiscal conservative I say don't do it.
