More Job Applicants Failing Workplace Drug Test

[DdC]

More Job Applicants Failing Workplace Drug Test
September 28, 2005 By The Associated Press
Oregon -- Workers and job applicants are failing drug tests at a higher rate this year in Oregon, bucking a recent national trend, officials say. Oregon Medical Laboratories in Eugene, the state's largest drug-testing laboratory, reports a 30 percent increase in the first six months of this year. Marijuana remains the most frequently detected drug, showing up in more than half of all positive tests. But methamphetamine appears to be the fastest-growing illegal drug of choice among workers.
Read More... http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread21147.shtml

CannabisNews Drug Testing Archives



Drug Testing Feels Economic Pressures
They are the staples of a modern-day job search: a polished resume, glowing references and a clean urine sample. Without fulfilling that last criterion for a satisfactory drug screen, applicants at many U.S. companies can forget about employment.

In the almost two decades since the federal government launched its "drug-free workplace" promotions, tests for illicit drugs have become standard for thousands of employers.

The tests have been credited with everything from higher productivity to decreased worker compensation claims. Tests are given to 25 million people annually, with an additional 25 million workers subject to screening.

But as thousands of displaced workers hunt for new jobs in the current economic slump and hiring has slowed, the $737 million drug-testing industry's expansion in workplaces has slowed accordingly.

And some employers are becoming less willing to spend money for drug testing if they do not believe that it contributes to the bottom line.

Growth of the drug testing industry, which averaged more than 12.5 percent annually during the 1990s, has tapered off to only about 1 percent a year.

Laboratories also struggle to provide accurate testing results despite "counterproducts" - the array of additives, cleansers and gizmos, readily available on the Internet, that employees can utilize to circumvent a positive drug test. Critics question whether businesses reap tangible benefits from the urine-in-a-cup. Continued cannabisnews.com/news/thread16218.shtml

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the NORML Foundation, a research organization that supports marijuana legalization, has a different perspective. He believes that employers have good reason to be concerned about workers who are high on the job. But urine tests are far more likely to nab employees who use drugs at a Saturday night party than those who are impaired during work hours, he said. And he believes that drug-testing policies are aimed more at morality than at productivity.

The American Civil Liberties Union, in a 1999 report, argued that drug testing programs were not cost-effective - costing industries millions of dollars a year to nab the small percentage of workers who use drugs. The ACLU said that the federal government spent $11.7million to test nearly 29,000 workers in 1990. Only 153 employees flunked, putting the cost of finding each user at $77,000, according to the ACLU. Citing several academic and other studies, the ACLU says that drug users are not any more likely than their nonuser counterparts to have workplace accidents.

ACLU * NORML

CannabisNews Drug Testing Archives

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
-- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas



If I instituted drug testing at Cypress, I would get a brick through my windshield, and I would deserve it.
--T.J. Rogers, President, Cypress Semiconductor

FIT 2000 non-invasive 30-second impairment test. "FIT 2000 is directly relevant to employers interested in high quality, exacting, detail work, as well as general safety and quality, without violating the privacy of the employee'

Dr. Heath/Tulane Study, 1974
The Hype: Brain Damage and Dead Monkeys (Jack Herer)

Urine Testing Company

After his resignation, Turner joined with Robert DuPont and former head of NIDA, Peter Bensinger, to corner the market on urine testing. They contracted as advisors to 250 of the largest corporations to develop drug diversion, detection, and urine testing programs.

Soon after Turner left office, Nancy Reagan recommended that no corporation be permitted to do business with the Federal government without having a urine purity policy in place to show their loyalty.

Just as G. Gordon Liddy went into high-tech corporate security after his disgrace, Carlton Turner became a rich man in what has now become a huge growth industry: urine-testing.

This kind of business denies the basic rights of privacy, self-incrimination (Fifth Amendment) rights, unreasonable search and seizure, and the presumption of innocence (until proven guilty).

Submission to the humiliation of having your most private body parts and functions observed by a hired voyeur is now the test of eligibility for private employment, or to contract for a living wage.

Turner's new money-making scheme demands that all other Americans relinquish their fundamental right to privacy and self-respect.

Policing For Profit: The Drug War's Hidden Economic Agenda

Spoils of Drug War Forfeitures Prove Too Lucrative

"Give me control over a nation's currency and I care not who makes its laws."
[Baron M.A. Rothschild (1744 - 1812)]

Just Say No To Drug Tests

Setting Drug Impairment Levels Far Off

Drug-Test Case Pitting Ideology Against Law

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
--Mussolini

Cops Confiscation Maliciously Punished Amputee

Think of the message being sent to the kids?

[HighRising]

Very interesting read.
There are avenues of employment I have not pursued because of mandatory drug testing - their loss.
_________________
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
- Puddn'head Wilson's Calendar

[Mystic Power]

Yes...it is their loss.

Gambling addict Bill Bennett was one of America's first "drug czars" ...

...He's also majority stock holder in one of the biggest drug testing companies in the U.S.

...but...I don't think there's a conflict of interest...or anything like that... he's such an upstanding person...

Follow your bliss,
Ben
_________________
"We are the Ones we have been waiting for."
~Hopi Elder ~

"In Lak'ech"
~ Ancient Mayan: "I am another YOU." ~

[Mystic Power]

Yes...it is their loss.

Gambling addict Bill Bennett was one of America's first "drug czars" ...

...He's also majority stock holder in one of the biggest drug testing companies in the U.S.

...but...I don't think there's a conflict of interest...or anything like that... he's such an upstanding person...

Follow your bliss,
Ben
_________________
"We are the Ones we have been waiting for."
~Hopi Elder ~

"In Lak'ech"
~ Ancient Mayan: "I am another YOU." ~

[Rev. Steve]

Well I've had my urinator for a few years now and can tell you that I will NEVER take another legitimate drug test again, NEVER. Even if I should stop using Cannabis (HA!) I will always substitute. They have broken the law by allowing drug tests so I must correct the situation by giving them false information. Here in the states, the fed seems to think that two wrongs do make a right. If they see weed use as wrong, then they will commit another wrong to make it right. By substutution, we make drug testing wrong again. Now this is how the department of corrections should think!