Chris Vogel wrote:
I don’t even feel like ranting about drug testing or the current drug laws.
Drug testing is horseshit, and in many cases against the law. Plenty of jurispurdence has established it does not satisfy any 'bona fide' reasons of safety etc, etc.
Drug testing is simply a 'witch hunt' where a result is pre determined and some test is established to 'prove' it justified, in the case of drug testing, the pre determined result is
'drug use would be bad for the employer' and consequently they test for drugs
however this is not only 'statistical' it doesn't involve individual study, it doesn't satisfy any actual 'imparement' that would be noticed in employment, it only measures that at one time, drugs "could have" been taken, actually it only measure that a subject was 'exposed' to drugs at some time.
Even in cases where a position is 'safety sensitive' drug testing NEVER has measured actual imparement, i.e. your ability to perform your job. There are tests that do measure imparment, however it exscapes me why no one has ever adopted these 'motor function' tests. - not only would motor function tests measure actual imparement for drugs, alcohol, it would also establish an employee is 'unsafe' to work, if over tired, sleepy, has a cold or flu, distracted from 'stress', etc. etc. -- In the interests of 'saftey', motor function tests have continuously satisfied any conserns.
in cases of alcoholism, drug testing is 'descriminatory on a disability'. alcoholism has long been reconized as a curable 'disease'. An employer who choses not to hire an alcoholic, is committing the same violation as not hiring someone based on race or sex. PROTECTED areas of discrimination are, race, sex, disablility.
The drug tests themselves are 'higly intrusive' and violates every bit of privacy an indivdual would reasonably expect. I'm not talking about the 'results' but the tests themselves. In order to have a proper drug testing policy, everyone must endure the 'tests' Privacy is not necessarily a protected 'right' However many athoritys of state have created some laws of privacy, even in Ontario, Canada we have 'access to personal information' which states,
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”)
5.(3) An organization may collect, use or disclose personal information only for purposes that a reasonable person would consider are appropriate in the circumstances
i.e. information collected CAN ONLY BE COLLECTED, which a reasonable person whould consider appropriate.
- 'reasonsable person' is not some scnook off the street, it is a 'legal test' using 'reasoning', and the jurisprudence is clear, no 'reasonable person' would ever consider drug testing appropriate,
"unannounced drug testing, in circumstances which have nothing to do with reasonable cause, cannot be squared with the undertaking in article 3.02 “to treat employees with respect and dignity.”
Nor can it be justified, even absent the language of article 3.02 of the collective agreement, on a responsible application of the balancing of interests approach in a safety sensitive environment that has carefully evolved over the decades within the arbitral jurisprudence in Canada"
Drug testing also has some serious consequences. Marijuana, can be detected for months after a subject has been exposed, however harsher drugs can only be detected for a few days. Given a subject pre-involvement with drugs, in order to escape detections, they could start using 'harsher'more higly addictive drugs. In many cases drug tests are done at specific times of days, So again we have a situation where a subject would only 'wait' till after this time, and then seriously jeapordise safety issues by being seriously impared at work, meanwhile escapeing every effort of detection an employer has adopted.
Drug testing at Walmart is a 'joke'. If a drug user cannot get a job at walmart then where should this drug user find employment? Theoritically, many would suggest a drug user simply 'stop' using drugs..... LOL, the drug tests measure exposure, not imparement, and for months at a time, in some cases 'years' so then what? even if a drug user were to stop the test would detect presence and the person would never find gainful employement. The common responce to indivduals on Social assitance is 'get a job' and drug testing makes that impossible, No escape
"A conversation between (president) Bush and an old friend and author, Doug Wead, touched on the subject of use of illegal drugs. In the taped recordings of the conversation, Bush explained his refusal to answer questions about whether he had used marijuana at some time in his past. “I wouldn’t answer the marijuana questions,” Bush says. “You know why? Because I don’t want some little kid doing what I tried"
drug testing is a witch hunt, only stupid uniformed people would subscribe to its authority. These same people likely believe 'witch's' still exist today. All rational thougt esacapes these people, they have an inability to use 'reasoning' and conciously choose to remain stupid. Even when given all the FACTS, they will still deny and maintain they are right and just.
Archived topic from Anythingforums, old topic ID:3817, old post ID:67348
It took me an hour to surrender a urine sample though. They pumped me full of water and let me read my library book in the waiting room.
