If you're one of thousands joining the workforce this year, you might see a little plastic cup in your inbox. This year, tens of thousands of workers can be expected to be asked for urine samples under routine or random drug-testing programs. Through the analyses of urine samples, these tests can detect whether a person has recently used drugs.
In the past year, 44 percent of young adults admit to having used drugs, the same age group that will become employed sometime within this year. Faced with this alarmingly high incidence of drug abuse, some employers have instituted drug-testing programs to identify current and prospective employers with drug habits.
Drug-testing is multiplying rapidly in both private industry and government agencies. At last count, more that half of the nation's largest companies were contemplating its use. But, despite its growing popularity, random and routine drug-testing has created a storm of controversy over its morality.
Proponents of routine or random drug-testing claim that employers have a moral right to a fair day's work in exchange for a fair day's pay. They also have a right to inquire into anything that seriously interferes with an employee rendering a fair day's work. It's a well-known fact that drugs can significantly impair a person's work performance, lowering productivity.
Drug and alcohol abuse reportedly costs employers nearly $100 billion in lost productivity each year. Employees who use drugs have double the rate of absenteeism, higher job turnover rates and cost three times as much in terms of medical benefits as those who don't use drugs.
Arguments are also made that employers have a societal responsibility in protecting both the moral and physical health of its workers. Drug abuse in the workplace constitutes a serious hazard to others. According to one survey, employees who use drugs have three times the accident rate as non-users.
Critics of drug-testing programs argue that employees have a basic right to privacy. Employers cannot intrude on this privacy without just cause and in a manner that is reasonable. Routine and random drug testing, they claim, clearly violates an employee's right to privacy. First, these programs, by their nature, subject employees to humiliation and invade their privacy routinely and randomly, not because there is reasonable suspicion of drug abuse. Second, drug testing is not an effective means for screening out employees whose on-the-job performance is being impaired by drugs.
The results of drug testing only indicate that traces of a drug are present in a person's body, not whether a drug is affecting a person at work. In some cases, a drug used days earlier will still register on the test.
"Pot stays in your body, stored in fat tissues, potentially your whole life," said Dr. Drew Pinsky, medical director for the Department of Chemical Dependency Services at Las Encinas Hospital.
"However, it is very unusual to be released in sufficient quantities to have an intoxicating effect or be measurable in urine screens. Heavy pot smokers, people who have smoked for years on a daily basis, very commonly have detectable amounts in their urine for at least two weeks. In these cases, marijuana may periodically reappear following heavy physical exertion or weight loss as it is released from fat stores.
"In my experience, most opiates and cocaine are free within 36 hours. Benzodiazepines (or drugs given for anxiety) may persist for up to several weeks but are usually out in three or four days. Amphetamines (such as crystal meth) are typically undetectable at 36 hours."
As if finding a job weren't hard enough. "I had applied for a job at an Eckerd's, a local drugstore store," says freshman Ilana Neuberger. "It was looking pretty good, but then they asked for a urine sample. I thought it was because there was a pharmacy there, and they didn't want employees pocketing drugs, but as it turns out, it was because the pizza place across the street was dealing coke.
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