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"Urine
the Money" - Another outgrowth of the Reagan era is the drug
testing industry. Practically unheard of fifteen years ago, the
testing of one’s urine, hair and sweat is increasingly being
utilized to identify and punish drug users among the population.
Drug tests do not detect impairment or performance, just the minute
traces of drug-related metabolites in one’s body. The American
Civil Liberties Union decries this practice as a violation of
the right to privacy, presumption of innocence, and freedom from
unreasonable searches and self-incrimination. Furthermore, it
is an invasive insult to human dignity. Nonetheless, mandatory
drug testing without probable cause is a practice that is being
used at an alarming rate, largely due to government mandates.
According
to a national survey, about 44 percent of the workforce report
that their employers subject them to some form of drug testing.
Virtually all Fortune 200 companies impose it. A survey by the
Chicago Sun-Times revealed that out of the ten largest private
employers, nine drug test their workers. Drug tests are now commonly
required for pre-employment screening purposes, and an increasing
number of business, police departments, government agencies, prisons
and armed forces, and sports organizations have begun to jump
on the bandwagon.
The developers
of drug tests quietly lobby for more laws that force you to submit
to their scrutiny before you will be able to get a driver’s
license or participate in school athletic programs. Widespread
testing ensures huge profits for these companies. One of the largest
such firms, Smithkline Beecham, sold over 24 million drug tests
in just ten years. The company that holds the patent on hair testing,
Psychemedics Corp., reported that its sales had tripled from 1992
to 1996 to $12.2 million.
While most
people support the employer’s right to forbid drug use on
the job, the arbitrary nature of drug testing is obvious on its
premise. Consider random drug testing; if an employee is performing
their job so well that the only way their employer can tell if
they have ever used an illicit drug is to test bodily fluids or
hair, they are doing their job. Their private lifestyle is not
a work-related issue, so the employer has no inherent interests
or right to invade the worker’s privacy. If an employees’
drug use keeps them from performing their duties, they can be
fired without resorting to a urine test. So the test itself serves
no purpose except to intimidate and dominate the workforce.
Technology
available to hair testing companies can detect traces of illicit
drugs up to ninety days prior to the test. As marijuana is the
most common illicit drug detected through these tests, this could
effectively prevent a person who has smoked a marijuana joint
in the last three months from making a living! Further, drug tests
are fallible. People can be banned from employment, lose custody
of their children, or be sent back to prison for a parole violation
- - based on a false positive. This effectively penalizes people,
not for their impairment or performance, but at the whim of a
flawed test that claims to show the presence of something in their
bodies that the government finds offensive.
(Taken from Shattered
Lives - Portraits from America’s Drug War - by
Mikki Norris, Chris Conrad
and Virginia Resner)
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