Mandatory Drug Testing

Final Unit Nine Mike Uriarte Effective Writing II Dr. Dennis Lawrence

Mandatory Drug Testing

There may be a few reasons a business will deploy a drug testing policy for their employees. Employers want to save money. They will be told stories by the laboratories about how drug users cost businesses more than $250 billion, are absent from work more often, and file more compensation claims then non-drug users. (ILO, 2006) But, how accurate are these assessments? Can the information really be trusted gathered from surveys taken by employees on a subject such as illegal drug use? Are businesses really saving money by drug testing its employees? Employers are doing more harm than good. Not only is drug testing not effective in targeting unproductive employees, it can create illwill from innocent employees who are forced to be subjected to a degrading process. Mandatory drug testing in the workplace is not an effective assessment of worker productivity, and unfairly subjects those who are not under the influence of any substance to an invasion of their privacy.

Based on a number of surveys taken by various groups, drug users cost businesses money in areas such as productivity, absenteeism, and on-the-job accidents. Saving money is usually the top reason for any business decision. Drug testing is no different. All the companies have gotten this sales pitch from the labs. Pay now, save later. This would seem logical. An employee on drugs wont be as efficient as the guy who is clean. The drug user will miss work, cause accidents, and be generally less productive then a clean employee. The problem is, drug testing does not address these issues. Yes, a company should be well within its rights to terminate an unproductive, mistake prone employee. But an employee, who tested positive for a drug that could have been ingested

Mandatory Drug Testing weeks ago, should not be labeled or considered a bad employee. The possibility of terminating productive employees is not what these businesses signed up for. This is actually money lost for a business. Not only can they loose a good hard working employee, time must now be spent training someone for a new position, which will effectively slow productivity. How will a company know if they are losing or gaining from drug testing? They wont. But the labs will stress that they are saving money. They have their own businesses to run.

In most cases, occasional marijuana users are the ones who will test positive on a urine test. According to studies that have been performed, the cognitive difference between a non-user and a user is negligible. 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). So a company, in most cases, would be terminating an employee who may occasionally smoke marijuana, but at the same time a reliable and productive worker. Some workers are placed in a drug program. These type of programs are designed to help drug abusers who have serious problems controlling their drug activities. They are not much use for the occasional user, and more money lost for a business.

The industry has clearly stated that drug users cost businesses billions of dollars. The Research Triangle Institute (RTI) stated in 1999 that businesses were losing $100 billion in lost productivity (Maltby, 1999). This number is based on a study published in

Mandatory Drug Testing 1984, called National Household Drug Use Survey, which compared the income of households that never contained a daily marijuana user with the income of households that did include a daily marijuana user (DeLuca, 2002). The difference was considered lost productivity due to drugs., and was multiplied by the estimated number of drug users in the workforce, to come up with the original number of $33 billion lost, which was then multiplied to consider inflation in order to arrive at todays number. A claim of hundreds of billions of dollars lost in worker productivity based on a 23 year old survey that doesnt measure actual productivity data is simply a farce. (DeLuca, 2002) A business must also take into consideration the fact that a certain percentage of knowledgeable employees can circumvent the test in a few different ways. An employee who is interested in protecting their privacy can purchase a masking agent that can be mixed with the sample to throw off the test. There are also devices that are being sold that can allow a worker to use a clean urine sample during the test. Performing a drug test on a urine sample that has been tampered with is just more money lost for the company. So not only is the urine test not finding unproductive employees, it is also testing sounds like a bad investment. altered samples. Drug testing simply

One of the main problems with drug testing what they test for. A urine test cannot detect impairment. Urinalysis testing looks for drug metabolites, which are biochemical products produced by the body as a result of ingesting certain substances. (Kim, 2006) These metabolites remain present in the body well after any psychoactive effects have disappeared. (Kim, 2006) The amount of time these metabolites remain in the body depends on the drug ingested. Since a urine test cannot determine when exactly a drug was

Mandatory Drug Testing used, there is no way that the test can tell an employer whether an employee has come to work impaired. Actually, a worker can ingest a number of drugs the same day as the urine test, be totally impaired, and pass the test with flying colors, since the test can only detect what the body has metabolized. (ACLU) On the other hand, a hard working, dedicated employee can smoke one joint, maybe at a party 3 to 4 weeks prior to testing, and test positive. How does what an employee did 3 weeks ago affect his/her ability to thrive at work? Drug testing can only show use rather than impact on performance. (ILO, 2006) Some companies wish to place employees who test positive into a drug program for counseling. How can an employer distinguish between a recreational user and an abuser who truly needs help? Treating a worker who doesnt require treatment is simply money being thrown out the window. Take the case of an alcoholic. A business can employ an alcoholic who comes to work impaired everyday, risking the health and safety of others, yet not worry about being caught by drug testing. Since alcohol is legal, businesses dont seem to be too concerned about identifying what statistically is a bigger problem. In 1990, problems resulting from the use of alcohol and other drugs cost American businesses an estimated $81.6 billion in lost productivity due to premature death and illness; 86% of these combined costs were attributed to drinking. (USDOL) The same is true for abusers of prescription drugs, which can seriously impair an abuser, yet not taken seriously by drug testers. This makes one wonder, why do they only test for illegal drugs, if worker safety and productivity are the #1 reasons for drug testing?

Another thing to consider when deploying a drug testing policy, is the possibility of a false positive result. Drug testing can yield a false positive result at least 10 percent, and

Mandatory Drug Testing possibly as much as 30 percent, of the time. (ACLU) False positives can be the result of other legal drugs ingested by a worker. Many over the counter or prescription drugs have the possibility to produce a false positive on a drug test. Not getting hired, or being terminated due to the ingestion of perfectly legal, non intoxicating drugs is a horrible injustice. In the case of someone like a teacher, failing a drug test would be a permanent stain, kind of like an accused sex offender who is proven innocent. The stigma never goes away.

Drug testing is the ultimate invasion of privacy. The fourth amendment of the US Constitution clearly states the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, and requires there be probable cause for such searches. It is truly an injustice to put an innocent person through such a degrading and invasive process. The experience of having a stranger observing, and in some cases, directly monitoring the urination process in order to protect against tampering, is an injustice. In the words of one judge, that is "an experience which even if courteously supervised can be humiliating and degrading." (ACLU). Not only is the experience unpleasant, but the test itself is one that can reveal sensitive private information about an employee. Using a urine test an employer can also tell if you are being treated for a heart, condition, depression, epilepsy, diabetes, and also reveal whether an employee is pregnant. Because of the possibilities of false positives, it is common for the employee to be required to list any medications they have recently taken. This type of information can reveal even more sensitive health information about the worker. This is a clear invasion of privacy and should be considered an illegal body search. Random employee drug testing

Mandatory Drug Testing authorizes employers to go on a virtual tour of their employee's private, off-the-clock personal practices and habits. The 4th amendment is supposed to protect citizens from warrantless searches by any organization or law enforcement agency. This is what is supposed to separate our country from dictatorships that rule their citizens with an iron fist.

Why deploy a drug testing policy? Can businesses really be this nave as to think they are saving money? Can they really think it is worth producing disgruntled employees? Are they protecting their image? Drug testing consultant Beverly Potter, says "Theyre worried about their image. Theyre afraid that to say they dont support drug testing implies that they support drug use." (Meisler, 2003). Unless they can come up with a test for impairment, they are not providing a safer or a more productive work environment for the company, which supposedly are their top concerns. Not only is drug testing not cost effective, it also violates the civil rights of its workers and reduces company morale. Add to that the possibility of false positive results; it would seem that the bad greatly outweighs the benefits for mandatory drug testing. It would seem more logical to judge an employee on performance, rather then their private lifestyle.

References

Mandatory Drug Testing DeLuca, A (2002). A critical assessment of the impact of drug testing programs on the American workplace, Addiction, Pain, & Public Health website. October 19th, 2002. Retrieved May 6th from the World Wide Web: http://www.doctordeluca.com/Library/PublicHealth/DrugTestWorkPlace2002.htm ILO. Coming clean: Drug and alcohol testing in the workplace. International Labor Organization. September 2006. World of Work Magazine No. 57, Retrieved May 13th from the World Wide Web: http://www.ilo.org/wow/PlanetWork/lang-en/WCMS_082253 ACLU. Drug Testing in the Workplace. Retrieved May 6th, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.lectlaw.com/files/emp02.htm

Kim, Pauline T. (2006). "Collective and Individual Approaches to Protecting Employee Privacy: The Experience with Workplace Drug Testing. Louisiana Law Review, Vol. 66, p. 1009, Retrieved May 6th from the World Wide Web: http://ssrn.com/abstract=937022

Meisler, Andy (2003). Drug testing's negative results. Workforce Management. October 2003, pp. 35-40. Retrieved May 13th from the World Wide Web: http://www.workforce.com/section/06/feature/23/53/63/index.html

Mandatory Drug Testing USDOL. How does substance abuse impact the workplace? U.S. Department of Labor. Retrieved May 6th 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.dol.gov/elaws/asp/drugfree/benefits.htm

Maltby, L. L (1999). Drug Testing - A Bad Investment. New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 1-27. Retrieved May 29th 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.doctordeluca.com/Library/PublicHealth/DT-BadInvestmentACLU99.pdf