It 's lunchtime but your supervisor has elected you to go for a random drug test. "Why me and why not him,” this is a common question that is often asked by employees. Most people believe that their body belongs to them and what they do in their free time is their business, however others believe that drug testing staff is within an employer’s legal right.
President Bill Clinton in 1998 famously said it depends what the meaning of “is” is. This points out the importance of definition. First we need to define terms. Employees should include whom? Should we include subordinates, mangers, administrators, clerical, manual workers, and support staff? Should we include individual “owner:” sole proprietors and owners who own stock, etc? …show more content…
Hashish was developed as a better alternative for opium. Laudanum was an improvement on opium, and most recently in the past several years methadone was used to control heroin and we now know that it is considered a drug of abuse. Now 70% of all illicit drug users are in the labor force (Fay, 2006). The real concern for this issue began in the federal workplace level especially in the military in 1980 and has continued to be a national policy extending to the Department of Transportation (DOT) in 1988. This came out of the Reagan presidency following the “just say no” campaign of his wife Nancy. President Clinton expanded and refined the drug testing program (Griffin et al, 2001) (Bush, 2008).
In this paper we will address the pros (Cost to employer, employee safety, and employee/employer performance), and the Cons (Drug testing are not always accurate, cost to the employer, and Invasion of privacy) of employee random drug …show more content…
The economic reality is that there are roughly 100,000 urine specimen collected daily (Ozminkowski, 2001). Taking into account the US Bureau of labor status numbers of civilians, military, and immigrant labor there are 185.5 million potential employees in the workplace. Looking at $4 (testing for 3 illicit substances) up to over $250 (testing for 13 illicit substances), the cost of drug testing can range from $3.7 million to $231 million (BLS.gov). The time delays created by shipping, laboratory analysis, and medical review, averaging 24 to 48 hours for negative results, and three to five days for positive results, may add considerable administrative costs to the program (Ozminkowski et al, 2001). Companies have to use time in the work day to do the random testing, causing company productivity to slow down costing the company time and money. If an employee is found to be positive, this then means the employee has a right under their medical benefits for treatment leading to more cost to the employer. The employer insurance also increases, causing them to spend more money per employee. Health care cost for those who have addiction problem which a drug test might show, are twice those for other employees (faceit). Drug and alcohol addiction results in $263 billion in lost productivity each year (face
President Bill Clinton in 1998 famously said it depends what the meaning of “is” is. This points out the importance of definition. First we need to define terms. Employees should include whom? Should we include subordinates, mangers, administrators, clerical, manual workers, and support staff? Should we include individual “owner:” sole proprietors and owners who own stock, etc? …show more content…
Hashish was developed as a better alternative for opium. Laudanum was an improvement on opium, and most recently in the past several years methadone was used to control heroin and we now know that it is considered a drug of abuse. Now 70% of all illicit drug users are in the labor force (Fay, 2006). The real concern for this issue began in the federal workplace level especially in the military in 1980 and has continued to be a national policy extending to the Department of Transportation (DOT) in 1988. This came out of the Reagan presidency following the “just say no” campaign of his wife Nancy. President Clinton expanded and refined the drug testing program (Griffin et al, 2001) (Bush, 2008).
In this paper we will address the pros (Cost to employer, employee safety, and employee/employer performance), and the Cons (Drug testing are not always accurate, cost to the employer, and Invasion of privacy) of employee random drug …show more content…
The economic reality is that there are roughly 100,000 urine specimen collected daily (Ozminkowski, 2001). Taking into account the US Bureau of labor status numbers of civilians, military, and immigrant labor there are 185.5 million potential employees in the workplace. Looking at $4 (testing for 3 illicit substances) up to over $250 (testing for 13 illicit substances), the cost of drug testing can range from $3.7 million to $231 million (BLS.gov). The time delays created by shipping, laboratory analysis, and medical review, averaging 24 to 48 hours for negative results, and three to five days for positive results, may add considerable administrative costs to the program (Ozminkowski et al, 2001). Companies have to use time in the work day to do the random testing, causing company productivity to slow down costing the company time and money. If an employee is found to be positive, this then means the employee has a right under their medical benefits for treatment leading to more cost to the employer. The employer insurance also increases, causing them to spend more money per employee. Health care cost for those who have addiction problem which a drug test might show, are twice those for other employees (faceit). Drug and alcohol addiction results in $263 billion in lost productivity each year (face