Drug tests for employees
Do you screen new hires for drug use? Why or why not? Share your thoughts.
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DiggIt all depend on the type of job that is being performed. How much will it effect a writer if he goes to work stoned compared to a school right.
Invasion of privacy? what? I hire, I own the company, and employees are compensated well. What you do on your own time is your business but don’t tell me how to run my business. Pre employment requires passing a drug test. Don’t like it then hit the road. Oh you say it has no impact on your work, well I know a few former employees looking for jobs so if you need you kids watched I’d be happy to help both of you out and send them your way. Have a nice day.
Every employer should test for drug use in the workplace. Why?
The national average estimate for the cost of substance abuse to a company per user is $7,000 in lost productivity, accidents, absenteeism and replacing fired and suspended employees.
Use the following formula to estimate the cost of employee substance abuse in your business:
1. Estimate the percentage of your total number of employees that use drugs. The national average is 17 percent.
2. Multiply the number of employees you have by this percentage.
3. Multiply that by the national average cost per substance abuser ($7,000).
4. The result is the annual cost of substance abuse within your company.
National Chamber of Commerce quote.
We use a company at http://www.1mdllc.com.
I think that drug testing in the workplace is a violation of a person’s right to privacy. I believe that the best plan of action is to use “probable cause”. If an employee comes to work with obvious signs of intoxication or other drug use, then the workplace should have to right request a drug test. Otherwise, what a person does on their own time should not be of anyone elses concern.
I dont own a business, though I would just like to point out that, according to Kevin (below, apparently the “President and Founder of Cal-Test Drug Testing Services”, although I’d beg to differ as he has made enough spelling mistakes to prove he may be on drugs himself!), you can actually get fired for not taking drugs. Especially if the tests are as innaccurate as he claims. Taking drugs doesn’t make you less of a person/employee, but abusing them can.
What’s missing here are examples of very successful companies that don’t drug test their employees upon hiring.
For example?
Microsoft and Nike.
These are successful companies by anyone’s standards. Why don’t they drug test? Certainly the drug testing companies have pitched their product to them.
The mainstream media has missed this very salient point in the debate over drug testing in the workplace.
If one of my employees smokes marijuana on the weekend, or while on vacation in Mexico, I’m supposed to fire them? That’s the premise of the drug testers. Ridiculous! Is there no such thing as respect for privacy and personal responsibility?
Alcohol, cold remedies, and other “legal” drugs, are not detected by these tests. Yet they cause thousands of accidents, injuries, deaths and liability. I guess we’re not worried about drinking on the job, as long as we get rid of all those “bad” people.
You know the very best of your employees tend to do drugs from time to time. The drugs are not the cause of bad things, abuse is. I am not sure if you ever done drugs with the owner of a company who screens thier employees? I have…and its not right.
Drug testing in the work place is hypocrisy. I worked as an IT consultant for a telephone firm and was treated more like a factory worker. Having to carry cups of pee through the work place every few months was degrading enough. I have two BA’s and spent my life working as a professional only to be treated like a crack smoking junkie.
The policy states that all employees should be random tested…yea right. Management does not get tested. Friends and relatives don’t get tested. Even a secretary whose husband is a known meth dealer does not get tested.
I have no problems with drug testing. I do with hypocrisy of management to discriminate on who gets tested.
I’m the President and Founder of Cal-Test Drug Testing Services (www.caltest.cc). We have been providing urine, hair, fingernail, saliva and breath testing for over 16 years, to both public and private employers.
After reading your article I was compelled to tell you the real story about these inferour “Instnat” testing devices.
The down side with POC-T (Point of Collection Tests), such as the device you covered, is the lack of specificity (accuracy at precise levels). These “Instant” tests have a magin of error of, AT BEST, 25% at the cut-off.
For example, if the Donor used illegal drugs two days ago and currently has 1,250 ng/ml (A POSITIVE LAB TEST), the “Instant” may miss it due to the instant tests poor performance. Now the employer has hired a known drug abuser. This will cause additonal liability for the hiring Company due to neglagent hiring practices…the employer dio not use the best test avaiable and failed to research the instant tesst true ability to accuratley idenify drug absuers before hiring them or before placing them in a hazardous work environments. This is why the Federal Department of Transportation restricts the use of these tests!
Additonally, these Instant test devises are EASILY BEATEN by drug abusers. Most of these tests do not test for adulatration or diaredic products that drug abusers commonley use to “Dilute” or defeat the urine testing process. LAB BASED urine drug tests do idenitfy these tactics and the employer is well protected.
Finally, these POC-T tests are EASILY misused by employers. For example, if the instant test shows a “Pending”, “Inconclusive”, “Non-Negative” or “Suspect Positive” result, the hasty employer will ASSUME that this reading is a true “Positive” for illegal drug use WITHOUT sending the sample to a REAL Forensic Lab for GC/MS Confirmation and Medical Review Officer (MRO) review. This temptation will falsly accuse applicant/employee as being illegal drug users, when indeed they are NOT!
Simple over the counter cold and flu medications and some foods can trigger a “Positive” reading on these instant tests and MUST be confirmed via GC/MS and those results reviewed by a certifed Medical Review Officer PRIOR to taking any negative action against an employee/applicant.
The famous saying “if it sounds to good to be true…it probabley is”. In the case of instant test devices it is NOT worth the risk!
Kevin Odenbaugh, C-SAPA/CPC-T/MRO-A
President
Great, nice to know you are looking out for us, Jason. In your police state, do we get free food and shelter too? I mean, after all, we all want a big brother looking out for us that tells us what we can and cannot do, and drug testing is a natural extension to that. While I am not a drug user, it is comforting to know that there are so many caring people out there who know better than I what I should and should not be doing. In fact, can anyone chime in here to tell me whether I should be reading CNNFn at 6:30am in the morning….certainly there are other things I should be doing?
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100% agree as with probably 60% of america he have little rights left and everything we do is critisized. i should not be judged by the quality of my piss but buy the quality of my caracter, cause i may smoke a little harmless pot on sat. doesnt have a thing to do with what happens on wed.