Congress votes to allow states to drug test welfare recipients

Fishking · Mar 23, 2017

Binary_Digit said:
It has everything to do with what you wrote:

"Because the possible costs incurred upon the company is significantly different than welfare. A person working for a company while coked out can do something that harms a customer, their property, or w/e and that company risks being sued for a significant amount of money. Like...what do you think would happen at a hospital of a doctor makes some kind of mistake in an operation while high?"

All three bolded parts assume the person is intoxicated while at work, not just in their spare time. And the assumption is made not because of trends or past behavior, but simply because they use some drug other than alcohol. If a person has a few beers over the weekend, nobody assumes they're likely to show up to work drunk and pose a danger to others and therefore shouldn't be hired (or should be fired) due to liabilities. So why does that assumption get made when it comes to MJ or coke? That makes no sense at all, it's just prejudice.

Maybe you're not the one making that assumption, and you're just explaining the reasoning behind it on behalf of companies that do drug testing. In which case I stand corrected about YOU holding prejudice beliefs, but they are still prejudice regardless.

Well...a smart company would also take note if someone came in intoxicated as well. I also understand that alcohol is the most abused drug out there that results in thousands of deaths, rapes, domestic violence, ect. The main problem here, I think, comes with liability. If an employee does messes something up the company can be held liable on a greater scale if said person was working under the influence.

Binary_Digit · Mar 23, 2017

Fishking said:
Well...a smart company would also take note if someone came in intoxicated as well. I also understand that alcohol is the most abused drug out there that results in thousands of deaths, rapes, domestic violence, ect. The main problem here, I think, comes with liability. If an employee does messes something up the company can be held liable on a greater scale if said person was working under the influence.

Definitely, if a company has reason to believe an employee is drunk/high at work, they should be able to accurately verify that through testing and then levy whatever sanctions they feel necessary if confirmed. However, urinalyses don't indicate *when* the person was intoxicated, only that they *were* at some point in the last few days/weeks. I fully support testing that can (and is only used to) determine whether an employee is *currently* drunk or stoned.

In terms of "most abused", I believe lately prescription drugs are giving alcohol a run for its money, but you're right it can be one of the worst drugs out there when abused. Alcohol is among those drugs which lower the user's inhibitions, meaning they're more likely to do things they wouldn't normally do. Most anyone who'se been even a little bit buzzed can attest to this. It's not called "liquid courage" for nothing. So ironic how ingrained and accepted it is at even the highest levels of our society, while users of most other drugs are thrown into cages like violent criminals huh? (BTW: Prohibition is the root cause of most drug violence, a fact that was just as true in the 1920's as it is today. But not trying to get too far off-topic.)

And I'm sure you're right about liability too. I think it should only increase if they actually knew the person was drugged up at work and did nothing until an accident, which would actually show negligence rather than a lack of paranoia. But I'm sure some sleazy prosecutor would just have him/her piss-tested and then argue that they hired a junkie and should have known better. But urinalyses are largely ineffective at reducing actual danger. Regular meth users won't be detected if they stop using for just 1-2 days. And occasional (1-5x a year) marijuana users can pop positive and be deemed a "danger" at work, over a month after they last touched the stuff. It's a valid goal to keep workplaces safe, but making people pee in a cup is just not the right tool for the job. That's something I think more people need to realize.

So if I were king and could have it my way, companies would only have to drug test on suspicion and it would be an on-demand test that can determine if the person is currently intoxicated. Then there wouldn't be any concern about welfare recipients not being able to pass a UA for employment, and this dumb testing policy has one less leg to stand on.

Fishking · Mar 23, 2017

Binary_Digit said:
So if I were king and could have it my way, companies would only have to drug test on suspicion and it would be an on-demand test that can determine if the person is currently intoxicated.

Devil's Advocate on this one:

1. For simple ease of method and all that, just doing screening the way they do it now is the easiest, albeit imperfect, solution.

2. If you do testing on suspicion that's going to open the door for complaints about discrimination. That's just how these types of things work and so the solution is to test everyone or test randomly. That's how the military does it, and it's for those very reasons.