Why Do Employers Still Routinely Drug-Test Workers?

[eridani]

Given that most other drugs and byproducts clear much faster, this is basically anti-marijuana

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34297-why-do-employers-still-routinely-drug-test-workers

“Increasing numbers of employers are doing some sort of drug-testing,” says Barry Sample, the aptronymic director of science and technology for the Employer Solutions business unit of Quest Diagnostics. “These days it is rather uniform across many, many employment sectors. Most of the larger corporations, and most—if not all—of the Fortune 500 have some sort of drug-testing.” In all, Sample estimates that some 45 to 50 million workplace drug tests are taken annually in the U.S., making up a massive industry in biomedical HR.

The practice has recently begun to creep in new directions. The drug test has long been a condition of employment for a large proportion of America’s workface; now, more and more, it’s a condition of unemployement benefits, too. In November, lawmakers in West Virginia discussed a bill to drug test anyone applying for a state-controlled welfare programs. Ohio lately held a set of hearings on the same thing. And Wisconsin started screening applicants for jobs training and food stamps. At least a dozen other states already have such laws in place, and at least a dozen have proposed the same in every year since 2009, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

This broad and retro culture of drug testing seems at odds with the growing disengagement from our long and painful War on Drugs. States are legalizing marijuana, and its use is on the rise; politicians now evince broad support for undoing policies that filled our prisons with harmless drug offenders. Yet despite this shift in strategy and realignment of our values, the drug testing of employees—performed at great expense to both the public and private sectors—remains routine.

That might make sense if testing yielded clear benefits to the companies that deploy it or to society at large. But here’s the most distressing fact about drug testing in the workplace: As was the case 30 years ago, testing has no solid base of evidence, no proof that it succeeds. We don’t know if screening workers for recent drug use makes them more productive, lowers their risk of getting into accidents, or otherwise helps maintain the social order. And what positive effects we do understand—there are indeed a few—seem almost accidental. They may not be worth the time and money and intrusion.