Drug Testin In The Workplace Essay, Research Paper

Drug proving in the United States began with the explosive usage of illegal drugs, in order to

kerb drug maltreatment. This began during the Vietnam War with drug usage at a flood tide. In

general, Drug testing is a manner to observe illegal drug usage and deter it, normally by Urinalysis.

Drug proving in the United States violates a citizen? s right to unreasonable hunt and

ictus? s along with endangering one? s freedom. Drug proving is non merely an undependable

invasion of a individual? s privateness but it assumes that one is guilty before subjecting to the

trial.

Drug proving began to take topographic point in the mid 1960? s when drugs like Marijuana,

psychedelic drugs and other drugs were going widespread ( Stencel, pp.201 ) . The military

enforced compulsory drug proving because of the widespread usage and the figure of

Veterinarians that were returning place because of dependence. Ronald Reagan pushed for

employers to implement drug testing and even had himself screened for illegal drugs to

encourage employers and to cut down resistance to proving ( Stencel, pp. 200 ) . ? The

increased concern about drug maltreatment has, in portion, ben the consequence of the early 1986

visual aspect on the streets of crack-a new, strongly habit-forming signifier of cocaine-and the

growing of cocaine dependence? ( Berger, 12 ) . President Reagan subsequently called for a 2nd

? war on drugs? run.

In October of 1986, President Reagan signed into jurisprudence a 1.7 billion dollar antidrug

measure, called the? Drug-free Workplace Order? . In add-on to the measure, Reagan instructed

his cabinet officers to make a program to get down drug proving for federal civil employees

( Berger, 14 ) . Drug proving therefore begun a crisp ascent into the country of private employers. In

November of 1988 Congress passed an Act necessitating grant receivers or federal

contractors to keep drug-free workplaces. Most of the employers set up voluntary

proving plans and many employees began to action, claiming that single testing is a

misdemeanor of privateness rights. The statement is that the employees are being deprived of their

Fourth Amendment protection. Many believe that authorities proving plans should be

unconstitutional unless the governments have either sensible intuition or likely cause

that the persons being tested are on drugs.

To warrant the usage of private employer proving, President Bush said in 1989 that

? Drug maltreatment among American workers costs concerns anyplace from $ 60 billion to

$ 100 billion dollars a twelvemonth in lost productiveness, absenteeism, drug-related accidents,

medical claims, and larceny? ( Horgan, 19 ) . This claim was derived from a beginning that

interviewed households that were 28 % lower in overall income than the mean family.

This was used in an attempt to advance Bush? s? war on drugs? forum into the private sector

( Horgan, 21 ) . Many behaviour? s of lower income people frequently differ statistically from

upper-income people, therefore the statement of Bush ne’er establishes a clear or accurate

statistic.

? In 1989 President George Bush unveiled his National Drug Control Strategy,

promoting comprehensive drug-free workplace policies in the private sector and in province

and local authorities? ( Stencel, 201 ) . This created many contentions within the

American workplace and in National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab determination,

the Supreme Court upheld that drug testing was legal every bit long as it outweighs privateness

rights ( James ) . Then, in 1991 Congress passed the Omnibus Transportation and

Employment Testing Act, which would widen drug proving in the United States.

Throughout the remainder of the 90? s drug trials were extended to the outermost sectors of

society doing drugs to go a important issue during election times, although

politicians are ne’er tested themselves.

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution was created because of the rough

intervention of settlers by the British. The British restricted trade and travel and this gave

manner to smuggling. ? British soldiers often conducted unrestricted house-to-house

hunts. Peoples were forced to maintain their private records and other personal information

on their individual or hidden in their place or concern to avoid exposure and possible apprehension?

( Berger, 102 ) . The Fourth Amendment was portion of the Constitution? s Bill of Rights to

protect one? s privateness and keep hunt and ictus warrants. The right to privacy

was described by Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis as? the right to be allow

alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilised work forces. ?

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the? right of the

people to be secure in their individual, houses, documents and effects against unreasonable hunt

and ictus? except upon likely cause. Random drug proving threatens the Fourth

Amendment and has been called intuition by association. This is to state that it is non

possible to warrant a hunt of one individual because they are similar to another. ? Suppose a

certain vicinity has a high incidence of violent offense. The constabulary can non support a

cover hunt of all occupants by claiming that there were many armed persons among

them, they say? ( Berger, 52 ) . ? Random drug proving assumes that every pupil is utilizing

drugs until they prove to the contrary by subjecting a urine sample, ? ( ACLU, 1 )

In general, the authorities can non seek a individual without ground to surmise that

he or she is guilty of wrongdoing. There is an exclusion, nevertheless, in limited

fortunes, where the hunt is in particular demand, the authorities has a compelling

involvement in the hunt or the privateness involvements affected by the trial are minimum. In Random

Drug proving there are no Fourth Amendment rights to be maintained. ? The right to

privateness is, as determined by the Supreme Court to be an inexplicit warrant of the

Fundamental law? ( Holtorf, 132 ) . Drug trials reveal many countries of one? s life which may desire

to be hidden to their employer or to the outside universe. ? Drug trials can uncover the usage of

preventives, gestation, or medicine for depression, epilepsy, diabetes, insomnia,

schizophrenic disorder, high blood force per unit area, and bosom problem? ( Holtorf, 132 ) . The revelation of

this type of information can be both abashing and harmful to one? s societal and

professional calling.

In some instances this has led to loss of employment for discriminated person? s.

Such in the instance of Duane Adens, a former Sergeant of the Army. Adens was asked to

give a organic structure hair and he refused. He so took a urine trial and it came back negative. He

was so asked to supply hair for a trial and when he did this the trial came back positive

for drugs. Aden was stunned and the ground forces denied his petition for a DNA trial of the hair

to turn out it was his. Sergeant Adens received a bad behavior discharge in July 1998. ? For

a soldier to lose his self-pride, household and military regard is a bit excessively much based on the

strength of a organic structure hair. ? -Representative Charles Rangel, New York. ( Kean, 3-4 ) . This

adult male will endure the remainder of his life, a federal strong belief, because of a falseness in our Drug

proving system.

? In 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory blood trials are

bodily hunts. The Fourth Amendment, it said, applied to such hunts. A

compulsory blood trial could be conducted merely if there is? a clear indicant that in fact

grounds will be found? ( Berger, 51 ) . This is to state that person can be given a trial if

there is a specific ground to believe that this individual is utilizing drugs. In all tribunal instances, the

tribunal has ruled in favour of the complainant saying that the organic structure and bodily fluids are

considered in the Fourth Amendment privateness clause. Yet in Drug Testing this is non the

instance. In Allen v. City of Marietta, the Georgian tribunal felt constrained by current jurisprudence to

clasp that a uranalysis is so a hunt. ( Berger, 51 ) . Urinalysis is most decidedly a hunt

sing that a hunt of one? s place is considered occupying privateness, what about one? s

piss? This is the most personal and private information one can give out.

Another clause in the Fourth Amendment in the Constitution is that of Due

Procedure. The Fourth Amendment clearly states that no individual shall be deprived of life,

autonomy or belongings without due procedure of the law. ? Pre-employment drug showing

wholly defies this in that it gives a prospective employee no opportunity of disputing the

trial. The occupation searcher is non considered for employment without even cognizing that it was

because of a positive drug trial. There have been many instances that a individual is eliminated

from the occupation pool because of a positive result of a drug trial and the individual is non a

drug user. The prospective employee has no opportunity to explicate a positive trial due to a

prescription drug or certain nutrients. It is possible to be a job-seeker and ne’er obtain a occupation

because of positive consequences on a drug trial due to a prescription drug, unless the prospective

employer uses their clip to demo the consequences.

Drug proving witho

Greenwich Mean Time a anterior intuition or likely cause can besides take to the

absence of Equal protection under the jurisprudence, the Fourteenth Amendment ( Holtorf, 135 ) .

? The Fourteenth Amendment was cited as protection against choice of a group of

jocks for proving by the National Collegiate Athletic Association without showing

a likeliness that drug usage was prevalent in that population? ( Holtorf, 136 ) .

Drug trials today are well weak. Mistakes and mistakes swarm the huge

concern of drug proving. ? Clinical research labs are non experienced with the particular

demands for specimen aggregation, analysis, storage, certification, conveyance, and

managing? ( McBay, 33B ) . Often times, simple errors such as mislabeling or coverage

mistakes are the ground for a positive turnout on a drug trial. ? Because drug testing has

go a really competitory industry, research labs are implementing cost film editing steps

and trying to prove increasing Numberss of specimens quicker and cheaper, which is

doing proving truth to decline even further? ( McBay, 33B ) . Often times, a positive

consequence has to be protested in order to hold the trial sent to a more luxuriant, expensive

research lab. An illustration of this was with a Heavyweight packaging lucifer in which the pugilist,

Tim Witherspoon was knocked out in the first unit of ammunition by James Smith and a hebdomad after the

battle Witherspoon was tested positive for Marijuana usage. Witherspoon protested this and

it was subsequently found that there was an mistake in placing the specimen.

? Dr. Don H. Catlin, head of clinical pharmacological medicine at the University of California

at Los Angeles, says that drug-testing houses? vary enormously in quality from research lab

to research lab every bit good as within the same research lab on a daily footing? ? ( Berger, 42 ) .

The ground is because the individual reexamining the trials needs to be both competent and

knowing in this field sing that this is person? s hereafter at interest. ? The majority of

the mistakes could be attributed to inadequate forces, hapless direction, interrupt concatenation of

detention, defective care, and defective admittances of studies and records, instead than the

trials themselves? ( Holtorf, 63 ) . Lack of instruction and experience frequently play a portion in the

truth evaluations of the different establishments.

? In the Spring of 1985, experts at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta found

a high rate of inaccuracy among the state? s drug-testing research labs. A survey of 13

research labs functioning 262 drug-treatment centres in the United States revealed that all had

performed unsatisfactorily and had failed to place right even half of the samples for

four out of five drugs tested. ? ( Berger, 43 ) . ? Merely 85 of the estimated 1,200 research labs

in the United States meet federal criterions for truth, qualified lab forces, and

proper certification and record maintaining? ( Holtorf, 60 ) . Society is frequently misled on the

truth of the research labs and many of the offices are executing much below the degree

in which they are portrayed. True consequences would be damaging to a research lab? s repute

and to their concern ( Holtorf, 61 ) .

One of the newest drug proving techniques being used is Hair proving. This signifier of

drug testing is considered less invasive and harder to go through. Hair proving can obtain

information on drugs that were done every bit long as three months prior to the twenty-four hours of proving.

The inquiry of favoritism, truth and intent of the proving raise the most

inquiries. Contamination of the hair is besides a factor in the diminution of truth of this trial.

The hair of African-Americans binds drugs into the roots of the hair ten to fifty

times more than that of a Caucasian ( Holtorf, 104 ) . This is highly prejudiced

because of the greater hazard an Afro-american will hold in taking a Hair trial. ? Some

trials have shown that coarse hair shows much higher concentrations of drugs than lighter

hair after consumption at the same sum of drugs? ( Stencel, 199 ) . There have been

legion surveies conducted that show that when two persons ingest the same sum

of drugs, the darker complected, darker haired one will demo greater concentration of the

drug. In two different instances two Afro-american adult females were tested positive to Drug

usage through hair proving and now are pending probes. ? Last August, Althea Jones

and Adrian McClure, along with six other Chicago African-Americans who say they

received erroneous hair trial consequences when using for the Police Academy, filed

ailments of racial favoritism with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The group is sing actioning both the metropolis of Chicago and Psychemedics? ( Kean, 1 )

Many scientists have confirmed that there is no true differentiation between the drug

being smoked or being in the same country or room for a great continuance of clip in the consequence

of the hair trial. Besides, because of the low degree of tolerance in the proving even a 2nd

manus experience to a drug such as Marijuana can do a positive consequence in a drug trial.

Dying of hair besides has different effects for types of hair. Using bleach, perming or

inordinate UV exposure can diminish the opportunity of proving positive in a Hair trial. ? For

these grounds, the ACLU strongly opposes hair proving. ? Every reputable scientific

organisation in America rejects the usage of hair proving for employment intents, ? ( Stencel,

199 ) . ? The Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Transportation, the

National Institute of Drug Abuse, and the Society of Forensic Toxicologists all rise

serious inquiries about the truth of hair proving. ? The consensus of scientific sentiment

is that there are still excessively many unreciprocated inquiries for it to be used in employment

state of affairss, ? said Edward Cone, the National Institute of Drug Abuse? s taking research worker

on the trial, in June 1998. In a recent interview, Cone said that hair proving? is non ready

for usage yet, where people? s lives are at interest? ( Kean, 2 ) .

Our Politicians in the United States are non tested for Drugs. This is rather

dismaying that the graven images that we vote into office and do out Torahs are someway above the

jurisprudence when in comes to Drug proving. ? In late September, the White House refused petitions

from congressional research workers seeking information about the occupations held by those in the

particular drug proving plan. ? Your petition sums to inquiring us to be complicitous in a

methodical, wide graduated table invasion of privateness, ? White House Counsel Jack Quinn wrote in a

missive to House Civil Service Subcommittee Chairman John Mica. ? ( York, 7 ) . Even the

adult male who the leader of our great state. The one adult male who holds the greatest power and

receives the most respect in the universe has fallen into drugs. ? There is grounds that Bill

Clinton himself attended some of Lasater? s parties. ? I? vitamin D ne’er seen the governor around

coke unless he was around Lasater. ? Brown told Tyrell that he saw Clinton? stoned? but

ne’er really witnessed the governor consuming drugs? ( York, 7 ) . ? While Congress

pushed for more little concerns to make drug testing, it refused to subject to drug testing, it

refused to subject to drug proving for congresswomans and their staffs, claiming it was excessively

undignified and perchance unconstitutional? ( Stencel, 205 ) . It isn? t carnival for a Congress that

enacts Torahs to necessitate the people to undergo drug trials non subject themselves to the same

degree of proving.

Drug proving in our state does hold its benefits. Yet there are so many

disadvantages and holes in Drug proving that it costs our state one million millions of dollars every

twelvemonth. Employment Drug testing is a proved failure, the lone addition is the addition of public

financess and reputes that politicians have gained through their active function in Drug testing.

Drug testing is non diminishing drug maltreatment, it is being used to know apart 1000s and

ruin lives of 1000000s of others. The Fourth Amendment is a basis of our counties

Democracy, Drug proving demands to be removed from our mundane lives to guarantee that we

maintain this Democracy and go on to populate our lives the? American manner? as the framers

of the Constitution intended.

American Civil Liberties Union. New Jersey justice blocks drug testing of pupil jocks.

New Jersey, 1997.

Berger, Gilda. Drug Testing. New York: Impact book, 1987.

Holtorf, Kent. Ur-ine Trouble. Scottsdale: Stephanie Cartozian, 1998.

Horgan, J. Test Negative & # 8211 ; A expression at the? grounds? justyifying illicit-drug trials. Scientific

American, March 1990 ; 262 ( 3 ) :18-22.

James, Jeannette C. ? The constitutionality of federal employee drug testing. ? The

Amerifcan University Law Review, Fall 1998.

Kean, Leslie. ? More than a hair off. ? The Progressive. 63 no.5, 32-34. May 1999.

McBay, AJ. Drug-analysis technology-pitfalls and jobs of drug testing. Clin Chem.

1987 ; 33:33B-40B.

Stencel, Sandra L. Issues for Debate in American Public Policy. Washington D.C. :

Congressional Quarterly, 1998.

York, Byron. ? Fast times at white house high? The American Spectator. V29, pp.20-26.

1996.