Question for people who think employer drug tests are a violation of your rights

[Dreamer Tatum]

Simple question: Do you ever fly on an airplane?

If so, how do you square your stand on employer drug testing with what happens at airport security? Isn't that a gross invasion of your privacy, too? They x-ray your stuff. You walk through a metal detector. They can choose to pat you down and ask you all sorts of questions. If they don't like your answers, you don't get to fly.

Just curious.

[tekisui]

1. How is looking for potential weapons,

that could be used to harm others at all similar to drug testing? Drug testing invades the privacy of the individual and what they do in their personal life. Not what weapons may be brought on to a plane.

Weak argument.

[Dreamer Tatum]

3. So if they find a lid of dope on you, they'll just wave you through?

What airline do you fly on?

[tekisui]

6. You mentioned a metal detector.

I don't smoke any metal. Your argument implied weapons.

Anyway, possession of drugs and being caught with them is still vastly different than using them in your own home on your own time.

It is reasonable for airports to search for weapons. If you have drugs laying about while they are searching for weapons, that is plain view during a legitimate search and I have no problem with that.

Taking urine samples is completely different.

Still, a very weak argument from you.

[Dreamer Tatum]

8. I don't think it's weak at all

People on the other thread are invoking rights they have that don't really exist, so I'm wondering if they have those same expectations in other situations.

I can strengthen my argument by asking a rhetorical question: "You mean you're willing to leave your stash at home, not bring a knife, and generally behave like a good boy scout so you can travel conveniently for a few hours, but you want an employer to make an open-ended commitment to you without getting to know anything that isn't on the application?"

That is my point.

[tekisui]

12. That in no way strengthens your argument.

All the employer needs to know is on the application or in the interview. I wouldn't accept an employer coming and looking around my house. I wouldn't accept one following me to see what I do in my leisure time. I wouldn't accept them putting a tap on my phone or asking about my sexuality. They can't watch me on Sundays to see if I go to church.

You analogy to airports is ridiculous and is connected to drug testing in no way.

[Dreamer Tatum]

16. Wait - potential employers have tapped your phone?

They watch you in Sundays? Wow.

I just find it interesting that people are willing to submit to whatever the gubmint says they should in order to fly rather than drive, but people expect to be hired and employed forever based on what they write on a job application.

[tekisui]

20. They have asked me to pee for them and then ran that pee through

tests. And, that is as bad, or worse, than the hypothetical invasions of privacy mentioned.

I get it though, you are terrified of drugs and support invasive measures to protect yourself from a perceived threat.

You do realize though, that even drug testing is ridiculously inaccurate. Drug users can mask the drug, use someone else's urine or abstain for a month, and be smoking a bowl on the way home. It is invasive and ineffective.

[Dreamer Tatum]

24. I'm a statistician - want a list of tests that are also shockingly inaccurate?

Mammograms
HIV tests
HIDA scans
and so forth.


I'm not in the least terrified of drugs! And once again, no one tests your piss that wasn't given the right test your piss by you.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. That is the way it works at some airports if one holds a medical

card. Yep. Wave you through, say have a nice day. Not about the airline, but the airport. And to be clear, that would cover up to 8 'lids' as the oldsters say.

[crikkett]

14. your snide response is snide

but it isn't a good reply to the comment.

The commentor said, OK search me (and everyone else) here in this airport on your time.

The commentor did not say, OK search me anywhere and anytime you'd like, whether I'm on your time or my own time.

That's the violation of work-mandated drug testing. Airport security can claim they're acting in the public interest. Employers can't make the same claim because they're actually testing what you do on your own time.

That said, I think airport security is a joke that succeeds only in harrassing passengers.

[slackmaster]

26. Government has legitimate power to enforce laws even if the laws are stupid

Private employers have the right to set conditions for employment. However, I don't believe that right extends to restricting trace chemicals in a person's blood, hair, or urine. Or to the contents of your car.

[Dreamer Tatum]

28. Fair enough answer nt

[Flaneur]

39. Try the Oakland airport--if you're a medical marijuana patient.

www.mercurynews.com/ci_13579137

[Sukie]

5. I don't know. I'd kind of like to be confident that my pilot

is drug free, especially when he is flying the plane that I am gonna be on.

[tekisui]

13. That isn't what the poster asked.

[hobbit709]

2. I have as much love for drug testing as i do for the Sicherheitsdienstt.

Always get the syllables reversed

[Robb]

4. Self-service?

My Deutsch is more than a tad rusty.

[rucky]

7. What bothers me most about both of those...

is the policy is created based on an assumption of guilt. If there is reasonable cause to believe your forklift operator or whatever is high (NPI), then sure - test away. Safe to say most of us don't carry our stash on the plane with us - or weapons, or anything else for that matter. Sure we have to monitor for security, but how it stands now leaves alot to the discretion of people who could easily and often abuse their authority.

[lunatica]

9. Do you think avoiding another terrorist attack is the same as being tested in some job?

Your priorities seem a little skewed. I don't like being treated like a criminal in an airport but I understand why it might be necessary. I want to be alive at the end of the flight I'm taking.

[msongs]

10. does airport security stick a needle in u and take blood or make u piss in a cup? nt

[Dreamer Tatum]

18. No, they just have the right to search your stuff and make your flight contingent

on answering their questions correctly. That's all.

[Bluenorthwest]

15. Does the TSA take bodily fluids from all travelers?

No. Would many people allow them to, do you think? Take some blood from their kids to fly?

[Dreamer Tatum]

21. So you draw the line at bodily fluids. That is a perfectly fine answer. nt

[undeterred]

17. Really bad analogy.

[Dreamer Tatum]

19. It's not an analogy.

Once more: I find it an interesting view of "individual rights" that some people will submit to whatever they must in order to travel conveniently, but draw the line at an employer learning one iota more than they would on a job application.

That's all.

[undeterred]

37. We don't have control over how the information is used.

I have gone through drug testing for every contract job I've had to do in the last 5 years. I don't use illegal drugs, so I am not worried about being rejected on that basis. However, how does one know if their urine is being screened for regular prescription medications? Does the employer have a right to know someone's medical history if they are not even providing health insurance? If they are providing health insurance, this is an easy way for them to screen out potential employees with expensive health problems. Do I trust employers? Hell no.

In addition, the drug screening is seen as kind of a joke. Its done at the beginning of employment in many cases, and never again. I know I have worked with many people who routinely get high, but they were smart enough to avoid doing it while they were looking for a job.

I've also worked with someone who had a serious addiction to cocaine and had even been arrested for posession. It affected his behavior at work. Did the employer pick up on it? Hell no, he had been working there for 18 months and the last drug test was 18 months ago.

I really don't think its an employers business what people do on their own time, as long as it doesn't affect their ability to do a job.

[seabeyond]

22. yes... i think it is beyond gross invasion of rights. why i dont give my money to be a part

of that institution anymore

[slackmaster]

23. There is a public safety interest in ensuring that people don't bring dangerous items on a plane

Other people may be harmed by someone who brings a weapon on a plane, either intentionally or accidentally.

And yes, I do fly on planes.

If so, how do you square your stand on employer drug testing with what happens at airport security?

There is no public safety interest in what people do with their own bodies in the privacy of their own homes.

K&U

:kick:

[wovenpaint]

25. Well, as of now anyway

Airlines don't generally send you into a room where you have to urinate in a cup in front of a stranger, or worse-have your blood withdrawn-all to provide information to a potential employer (and their insurance carrier) as to any drugs in your system, including the "legal ones".
I understand that some jobs involve responsibility and safety issues, like drivers and machine operators, etc. but still believe that arbitrary testing before the fact is a violation of rights and an invasion of privacy.

Innocent until proven guilty.

So, although I detest the invasive measures used by airlines that provide a false sense of security, I can choose to fly or not. Employment drug testing IS an violation of civil rights (IMHO), yet unfortunately mandatory for many jobs. If I refuse to submit to one, I won't be hired, period.


Guilty until proven innocent.

[Toucano]

27. But people don't have to fly to live. What is the alternatvie to working?

Can I go sign up to be a trust-fund baby?

Cause if I can and my guidance counselor failed to appraise me of this option, I am going to be so pissed!

[baldguy]

32. +1

"If you don't like it, go work somewhere else." As if most people have that choice - especially in the current economy.

[Javaman]

29. This is the third thread I have seen on this topic today. Is there something in the water? nt

[baldguy]

30. This is a classic straw man argument.

As if a high-value high-responsibility position requiring a great deal of training & skill is equivalent to every other job.

Is it that you think doctors, airline pilots & police officers should be treated as low-class servants with no reasonable expectation of privacy? Or do you think burger flippers & cube monkeys deserve to be treated as if they make life & death decisions which effect hundreds of people every day?

The intent of drug testing has nothing to do with public safety, security of the workplace or any concern for the health of the workers. The fact is corporations use it almost exclusively to intimidate their workers & to try illegally to control their lives - even when they're away from work. You know this because it's invariably required for the masses and not even considered for the management.

How about we test the people who DO make important decisions which effect the public and give the general workforce population back their dignity & privacy?

[Obamanaut]

31. Was the drug testing policy in place when hired? And as to the

simple question, here's a simple answer: Don't fly.

[Sinti]

33. Isn't this kind of like the conflation of mandatory health insurance and car insurance?

A really apples and oranges comparison?

That said, I've NEVER even applied to a place that did urine testing. Every job I've ever heard of that did it was a totally crap job that people only take, because they can't get something better. Employers that test are like a slum landlord. A slum landlord does everything he can to make sure the people living in his hovels feel they can't do better, and should be grateful they have a place to stay at all. He doesn't have to maintain anything, or make it nice, because the people are so miserable, desperate and terrified of the street they'll put up with anything.

Really, if they want to test your urine, what other kinds of BS are you going to have to put up with - outside of doing a good job, and being productive? I personally would not tolerate that, it violates my person - and I could easily pass the test.

[juno jones]

34. There's a differnce between flyin yer plane

and fryin' yer burger. Just sayin.

And people who are commercial pilots should be considered adult and experienced enough to not be tokin' up in flight.

The gravity of the job has to be weighed and the inaccuracy and realities of tests that check only for metabolites needs to be addresed.

The rest is just making others pee in a cup because you had to do it.

[PVnRT]

35. If I am not intoxicated at work, what harm do I pose?

None.

If I sneak a bomb onto a plane, what harm do I pose?

Stupid analogy.

[Greyhound]

36. Of course it is a violation. n/t

:dunce:

[Taitertots]

38. Terrorist =/= Pot use at home

Employer =/= Airline security
Search for weapons on you =/= Search your pee for drug use last week
If you believe in your statements you must obviously not care what police do to search you. Obviously you don't because the analogy is utter failure and you can't even accept the most obvious inferences it makes.
Would you care if I searched you? Obviously if your analogy is what you believe you wouldn't, because you submit to security searches at the airport you must want me to colon check you.


Do you think employers should be able to search your computer?
Do you think employers should be able to put a tattler in your car outside of work?
Why would you think they should be able to search inside your body?

[Flaneur]

40. Both employer drug testing and TSA searches are legal...and abhorrent

I don't fly now if driving is a reasonable option (and I've stretched reasonable to mean if I can drive there in two days).

I don't work for people who demand to sniff my urine.

In both cases, the only response, other than just letting your boss or the state roll over you, is to organize to change the laws. In the case of employment, it would be nice if we had a powerful union movement. But that's so passe.