They are the staples of a modern-day job search: a polished resume, glowing references and a clean urine sample. Without fulfilling that last criterion for a satisfactory drug screen, applicants at many U.S. companies can forget about employment.
In the almost two decades since the federal government launched its "drug-free workplace" promotions, tests for illicit drugs have become standard for thousands of employers.
The tests have been credited with everything from higher productivity to decreased worker compensation claims. Tests are given to 25 million people annually, with an additional 25 million workers subject to screening.
But as thousands of displaced workers hunt for new jobs in the current economic slump and hiring has slowed, the $737 million drug-testing industry's expansion in workplaces has slowed accordingly.
And some employers are becoming less willing to spend money for drug testing if they do not believe that it contributes to the bottom line.
Growth of the drug testing industry, which averaged more than 12.5 percent annually during the 1990s, has tapered off to only about 1 percent a year.
Laboratories also struggle to provide accurate testing results despite "counterproducts " - the array of additives, cleansers and gizmos, readily available on the Internet, that employees can utilize to circumvent a positive drug test. Critics question whether businesses reap tangible benefits from the urine-in-a-cup routine.
Workplace drug tests - primarily of job applicants, but also of existing employees, in some cases - took off during the "just say no" era of the 1980s, with heavy promotion by the federal government. They typically detect opiates, cocaine derivatives, barbiturates, methamphetamine and marijuana, revealing drug use from several days or perhaps even months earlier.
Sixty-one percent of companies now screen job applicants, and 50 percent test their existing employees, according to the American Management Association's most recent survey in 2001. That is down from the 1996 peak, when 68 percent of employers screened candidates.
Meldron Young, the association's human resources practice consultant, said drug tests remain a standard element of most employers' hiring procedures.
But the weak economy has prompted businesses to review spending, and some have eliminated drug screens for employees whose duties do not pose safety risks.
"They probably won't waste their money trying to do it," Young said. "You have people that are moving into the upper echelons of corporate America now that kind of take the stance that, if it's not affecting the person's performance, it's not an issue."
Joseph Halligan, chief executive of Haltom City, Texas-based PharmChem, linked the downturn in testing, at least in part, to the current hiring slump.
Although the notion that drug users make for bad employees has a common-sense appeal, Young said companies generally have not quantified the before-and-after results of their anti-drug campaigns.
Without evidence of drug testing's advantages to their own operations, some managers are less willing than they used to be to spend roughly $30 apiece to test applicants and employees, he said.
"Employers right now are so in survival mode," Young said. "It doesn't contribute to the bottom line right now."
That outlook troubles Becky Vance, executive director of Drug Free Business Houston.
"In leaner economies, corporations tend to cut back a little bit," she said. "It's scary when you think about what that might cost. You can't afford not to do it, really."
Vance's organization encourages Texas companies to test all job applicants and to randomly screen employees.
Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the NORML Foundation, a research organization that supports marijuana legalization, has a different perspective.
He believes that employers have good reason to be concerned about workers who are high on the job. But urine tests are far more likely to nab employees who use drugs at a Saturday night party than those who are impaired during work hours, he said.
And he believes that drug-testing policies are aimed more at morality than at productivity.
"It's certainly not about public safety. And it can't be about building a better relationship between employees," he said. "This is about trying to find out if somebody is breaking the law and then holding them accountable for it."
Advocates of workplace drug testing cite a number of bottom-line benefits to employers who ferret out drug users. But opponents cite their own statistics to argue to businesses that drug screens are a waste of money.
According to the American Council for Drug Education, substance abusers, when compared with nonabusers, are:
• Ten times more likely to miss work.
• 3.6 times more likely to be involved in on-the-job accidents.
• Five times more likely to file a workers' compensation claim.
• 33 percent less productive.
• Responsible for health care costs that are three times as high.
Some opponents of blanket testing question the accuracy of those data, and they note that many of those abusers are consuming alcohol - not marijuana or any other illegal drug.
The American Civil Liberties Union, in a 1999 report, argued that drug testing programs were not cost-effective - costing industries millions of dollars a year to nab the small percentage of workers who use drugs.
The ACLU said that the federal government spent $11.7million to test nearly 29,000 workers in 1990. Only 153 employees flunked, putting the cost of finding each user at $77,000, according to the ACLU.
Citing several academic and other studies, the ACLU says that drug users are not any more likely than their nonuser counterparts to have workplace accidents.
<a href="http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread16218.shtml" target="_blank">Drug Testing Feels Economic Pressures</a>
Source: Tallahassee Democrat (FL)
Author: Maria M. Perotin, Knight Ridder Tribune
Published: Wednesday, May 7, 2003
Contact:
tdedit@taldem.com
Website: <a href="http://www.tdo.com" target="_blank">http ://www.tdo.com</A>
ACLU
<a href="http://www.aclu.org" target="_blank">http ://www.aclu.org</A>
NORML
<a href="http://www.norml.org" target="_blank">http ://www.norml.org</A>
<a href="http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/drug_testing.shtml" target="_blank">Cann abisNews Drug Testing Archives</a>
If I instituted drug testing at Cypress, I would get a brick through my windshield, and I would deserve it. --T.J. Rogers, President, Cypress Semiconductor
FIT 2000 non-invasive 30-second impairment test. "FIT 2000 is directly relevant to employers interested in high quality, exacting, detail work, as well as general safety and quality, without violating the privacy of the employee'
<a href="http://www.pmifit.com/pmifit2.html" target="_blank">http ://www.pmifit.com/pmifit2.html</A>
<a href="http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch15.html" target="_blank">Dr. Heath/Tulane Study, 1974</a>
The Hype: Brain Damage and Dead Monkeys
Urine Testing Company
After his resignation, Turner joined with Robert DuPont and former head of NIDA, Peter Bensinger, to corner the market on urine testing. They contracted as advisors to 250 of the largest corporations to develop drug diversion, detection, and urine testing programs.
Soon after Turner left office, Nancy Reagan recommended that no corporation be permitted to do business with the Federal government without having a urine purity policy in place to show their loyalty.
Just as G. Gordon Liddy went into high-tech corporate security after his disgrace, Carlton Turner became a rich man in what has now become a huge growth industry: urine-testing.
This kind of business denies the basic rights of privacy, self-incrimination (Fifth Amendment) rights, unreasonable search and seizure, and the presumption of innocence (until proven guilty).
Submission to the humiliation of having your most private body parts and functions observed by a hired voyeur is now the test of eligibility for private employment, or to contract for a living wage.
Turner's new money-making scheme demands that all other Americans relinquish their fundamental right to privacy and self-respect.
<a href="http://www.fear.org/chicago.html" target="_blank">Poli cing For Profit: The Drug War's Hidden Economic Agenda</a>
<a href="http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread12369.shtml" target="_blank">Spoi ls of Drug War Forfeitures Prove Too Lucrative</a>
<a href="http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1802/a04.html" target="_blank">Putt ing The Pee In Protest</a>
<a href="http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread12376.shtml" target="_blank">Just Say No To Drug Tests</a>
<a href="http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread12374.shtml" target="_blank">Sett ing Drug Impairment Levels Far Off</a>
<a href="http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread12373.shtml" target="_blank">Drug-Test Case Pitting Ideology Against Law</a>
<a href="http://www.mapinc.org/clipping/v99/n1085/a09.html" target="_blank">HIGH COURT REFUSES TO HALT DRUG TESTS</a>
Appeals Rejected: Teachers Must Submit To Procedure
<a href="http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread4129.shtml" target="_blank">Appe als Court Strikes Down Drug Testing Law</a>
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodfuelfiberfarmace uticals/message/129" target="_blank">drug _testing related topics extensive list of articles...</a>
"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." --Mussolini
<a href="http://www.geotech.org/survey/apge/apge8.html" target="_blank">Asso ciation of Petroleum Geochemical Explorationists ...</a>
Soil Gas Helium Surveys for Petroleum Exploration in Kansas
- John P. Walters and Kenneth R. Sundberg. ...
<a href="http://www.philanthropyroun dtable.org/1.1/pubnote1.html" target="_blank">Phil anthropy Roundtable (Tax shelters for PDFA)</a>
Drugczar John P. Walters President
A vibrant private sector is critical to creating the wealth that makes philanthropy possible.
ACS - Division of Analytical Chemistry - DAC Awards John P. Walters 1980 (Urine Testing)
<a href="http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch14.html" target="_blank">Part nership for a Drug Free America: Slickly Packaged Lies</a>
Some of the teachers we talked to find themselves in the uncomfortable position of knowing the real studies, or have used cannabis themselves and know its effects, but cannot openly present their case for fear of being urine tested or dismissed.
<a href="http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/culture/media/4/4237.gif" target="_blank">D.E. A.th Flunky</a>
<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/908430.asp?cp1=1" target="_blank">Bill Bennett binge gambler.</a>
Former chain smoker, current obese alchoholic xDrugczar
$8 million in loses over 10 years.
<a href="http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/culture/media/4/4353.gif" target="_blank">Bill Bendit's Virtues</a>
<a href="http://loper.org/~george/archives/2001/Feb/76.html" target="_blank">John J. DiIulio, Jr. and His Change of Heart</a>
(Superpredator Kids on Pot!)
<a href="http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n165/a03.html?183" target="_blank">US: New Bush Office Seeks Closer Ties to Church Groups</a>
<a href="http://www.baltech.org/lederman/bush-religion-1-29-01.html" target="_blank">Bush Religion Initiative headed by CIA Think Tank</a>
John J. DiIulio Jr. and Stephen Goldsmith. Both men are senior fellows of the CIA's Manhattan Institute and are colleagues of Charles Murray, author of the classic text of scientific racism, The Bell Curve. Most of Bush's advisors are also associated with the Bell Curve. As just one of many examples, Murray was a consultant on Tommy Thompsons' Wisconsin Welfare Reform program, which Bush will make the national model
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. -- Upton Sinclair, "The Jungle"
"The struggle between the two worlds [Fascism and Democracy] can permit no compromises.
It's either Us or Them!"
Benito Mussolini Address, from Palazzo Venezia balcony October 27, 1930
<a href="http://www.cannabinoid.com/boards/politics/media/35/35917.gif" target="_blank">Amer ican Cannabis Fluid Extract</a>
<a href="http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/cocaine/coke1.htm" target="_blank">Coca ine Toothache Drops</a>
Our current drug crisis is a tragedy born of a phony system of classification. For reasons that are little more than accidents of history, we have divided a group of nonfood substances into two categories: items purchasable for supposed pleasure (such as alcohol), and illicit drugs. The categories were once reversed. Opiates were legal in America before the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, and members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, who campaigned against alcohol during the day, drank their valued "women's tonics" at night, products laced with laudanum (tincture of opium).
<a href="http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/30/30030.jpg" target="_blank">Laud anum...</a>
<a href="http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/30/30029.gif" target="_blank">Baye r Heroin</a>
They who can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin
<a href="http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/29/29561.gif" target="_blank">Piss ing Away the 5th</a>
I could abide---though I would still oppose---our current intransigence if we applied the principle of total interdiction to all harmful drugs. But how can we possibly defend our current policy based on a dichotomy that encourages us to view one class of substances as a preeminent scourge while the two most dangerous and life-destroying substances by far, alcohol and tobacco, form a second class advertised in neon on every street corner of urban America? And why, moreover, should heroin be viewed with horror while chemical cognates that are no different from heroin than lemonade is from iced tea perform work of enormous compassion by relieving the pain of terminal cancer patients in their last days?
-- Stephen J. Gould, evolutionary biologist, Taxonomy as Politics, Dissent, winter 1990, p73
"Give me control over a nation's currency and I care not who makes its laws."
[Baron M.A. Rothschild (1744 - 1812)]
<a href="http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/29/29559.gif" target="_blank">Bibl ical Piss Tasters.</a>
"...somebody has to take governments' place,
and business seems to me to be a logical entity to do it."
- David Rockefeller - Newsweek International, Feb 1 1999.
As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
-- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
<a href="http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/29/29574.gif" target="_blank">Got Piss?</a>
There are always a few, better endowed than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot restrain themselves from attempting to shake it off.... These are in fact the men who, possessed of clear minds and far-sighted spirit, are not satisfied, like the brutish mass, to see only what is at their feet, but rather look about them, behind and before, and even recall the things of the past in order to judge those of the future, and compare both with their present condition. These are the ones who, having good minds of their own, have further trained them by study and learning. Even if liberty had entirely perished from the earth, such men would reinvent it. For them slavery has no satisfactions, no matter how well disguised.
--Etienne de la Boetie, The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude
We can have justice whenever those who have not been injured by injustice are as outraged by it as those who have been.
--Solon (594 B.C.)
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
--Albert Einstein
Drug Testing Feels Economic Pressures
Linear Mode
