> 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.
I've never heard anyone suggest that is does. The reasons in favor of drug testing I've always heard is that you don't end up hiring people who are so incompetent as to be doing drugs while applying for new jobs. It's just one more piece of signalling.
I was drug-tested when I accepted employment at my current job. I had 3 or 4 days to make it in. Even if I was the type of person to regularly consume illegal drugs, I certainly would not have done so while applying for work.
I don't think it does much good, it's probably a waste of money, and I don't care what my coworkers smoke as long they're not doing it at work, but I also don't see how anyone can be incredulous or indignant about it.
You're not really the class of employee that these policies are (or should be, at least) targeted at.
I had to take a piss test to get a job where I drove a company box truck on a route every day, with a hazardous material endorsement. I was fresh out of high school, no other qualifications. I didn't then, nor do I now, have a problem with that piss test.
I'm a programmer now. I'd have a problem with a piss test--which I would readily pass, even if it were effective.
Yesterday, journalists weren't the class of employee that these policies are targeted at, but today they became so.
If this shit becomes the default (megacorp drones will think: why not extend this inexpensive procedure to everyony) we'll just live in even worse and more humiliating society than we do already.
One journalist at an unnamed "national" magazine was drug tested. The author then makes a joke out of it. The story was a set up for the rest of the article. Worrying it's becoming the default is just irrational as outrage over Starbucks' war on Christmas.
Let me put this out there now, before you’ve read too far: I was not myself drug-tested before publishing this story. Neither was my editor, nor the copy editor, nor any of the designers, programmers, or art editors who worked on it. For all I know, the lot of them—the entire staff of Slate—could be huddled in a conference room right this very minute, passing joints around and shooting dope and snorting PCP. But ours is not the standard workplace in America.
I once worked for a division of a company that had no drug testing policy. After that division was moved under another during a reorganization it was required that all new hires be drug tested. It didn't matter that we sat at desks all day. It was only through concerted effort on the part of management and key employees that we were allowed to stop doing it. It took close to two years to get it fixed.
It's really no wonder megacorps have a hard time retaining talented or creative people when the only ones that can endure it are required to have incredible tenacity and patience.
I'm a programmer. I had to take a drug test AFTER I was already hired, because we got bought up by another company and the new company's hiring policy (they're a major corporation) requires every single employee submit to a drug test, for some mission statement reason (you can rest easy that our employees aren't on drugs! or something).
I was tempted to quit over it, but I didn't. I thought I was done with that shit, though.
Is it none of your company's business if you're regularly engaging in illegal behavior? Does it not speak to character? We talk about cultural fit a lot here - what if the culture of a company is such that they want employees who obey the law, even laws that make little sense and they may not agree with? Or somewhat more realistic, they don't actually care if you use drugs they just want to make sure you're smart enough not to do it immediately before applying for a job with a new company?
They're not asking for sexual history, they're not asking for a full medical workup, or anything else unrelated. You're being paid to perform an intellectual task, and unless you're suggesting that drug use has no effect on one's mental state, I think it's relevant.
While I disagree with drug testing, there is a legitimate reason to do so: if an employee is consuming illegal drugs, that greatly increases the risk of said employee being caught with such drugs and being arrested and imprisoned. This means that at any time, an employee could be here one day and gone the next, which means that costly adjustments to overall workload must be made at the drop of a hat. Add in the possibility of multiple employees consuming illegal drugs together after hours and you run the risk of an entire team being the equivalent of hit by a bus.
Many recreational drugs aren't bad. Marijuana is not harmful, psychedelics are generally non-addictive, and nearly everybody who's not Mormon or Muslim drinks. The problem - and risk - for an employer, is illegality.
Drunk driving is a far cry from drug possession. For one thing, you can get drunk frequently, show up to work on time, and never touch the wheel of a car. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Sure, but by that token, you can smoke cannabis nightly, show up for work on time, and never touch the wheel of a car either. You'd still fail the piss test.
The other thing not touched on too much is how cannabis (despite being one of the least harmful recreational drugs/drugs of abuse, and most commonly used) is one that can be detected the longest. I can go out on a bender drinking liquor and blowing lines of coke this weekend, get called in for a drug test on Thursday, and still piss clean.
...but if I went camping a few weeks ago and spent my evenings passing joints around the fire with friends, I could easily throw a flag for cannabinoids on a urinalysis weeks later.
It's really kinda messed up in that way because the logic of "well, what does it say about you that you couldn't lay off the stuff long enough to pass a drug test?" goes out the window with pot. If you like to take a few tokes in the evening after work, that can show up on a test weeks or months later, even if you quit while applying for jobs.
I'm not going to pull it up on my work computer, but the Wikipedia "Cannabis drug testing" article states that for non-habitual users, THC only stays in your system for 3-10 days. Long-term, habitual use will obviously build up in your system and be detectable for much longer.
So yes, I think "well, what does it say about you that you couldn't lay off the stuff long enough to pass a drug test?" is still relevant for non-habitual users, and habitual users are exactly the ones these types of policies are designed to detect.
Also a socio-economic level of agency filter effect. At least a couple percent of test results are false positives. Combine those two and you filter out poorer applicants and lower level, lower income employees. If you need to downsize 5% you can start with drug testing everyone and even if no one uses drugs the high false positive rate will get rid of some employees, now you only have to downsize 2% or something. This also works to reduce spend on welfare type programs and unemployment.
I honestly don't think people realize just how often these tests result in false positives until it happens to them. The only drug test I've ever taken came back positive for meth. XD In addition, people are mislead by % points. Even if only 2% of drug tests come back as false positives, when you multiply that across millions of people and when you have those same people take multiple tests a year... well that's a lot of people getting slapped around by faulty testing.
More people should know this. There is a great piece in the Washington Post today about how a false positive result from tea bags left in the trash (which was being sifted through by Sheriff's Deputies after they saw a homeowner shopping at a gardening store, giving them what apparently passes for PC these days) led to a no-knock raid with a SWAT team holding a middle-aged couple that doesn't use drugs at gunpoint for an afternoon.
I work in consulting in the oil and gas industry. Many E&P companies are struggling right now with crude in the $30-40/bbl range. The E&P I work for has reduced staff 4 times this year officially. Unofficially they've had 6 "random" drug tests in the past 8 months. That is a way to reduce payroll without having to do a press release stating you've dropped 26% of your workforce.
I have relatively high income, I come from affluent family, I have some savings, I'm kind of well-off, I have no troubles finding jobs.
This means I can quit a job over drug testing. A lot of people can't - they have mouths to feed, no savings to cover it up, not too desirable on job market.
This means I have an obligation to abruptly terminate my employment in such situation.
This will make employers consider drug testing policies against losing people like me. Which makes world less bad for everyone, even people who could not just quit.
This is where middle-class privilege comes in handy to shield us all.
I am downvoting you not because of your logic, which is sound, but your tone, which comes across as superior and smug, even if you are acknowledging the disadvantages of those who do not possess what you call "privilege." I am doing so because a less discerning reader may judge you own your tone alone and disregard your logic entirely, rendering your argument moot. You have made your point, but in an ineffective way.
And I'm down voting you just because. Parent was not inflammatory, wasn't name-calling, and gave a well-reasoned argument that made me think about my privilege and obligations that might go along with it. Are you saying that this kind of post is what you want to see less of on HN?
It is quite inappropriate to dismiss and decrease visibility of a voice simply because it doesn't say what needs to be said in a way you approve of.
Indeed you express the same kind of "smug[ness]" you accuse that person of:
"I am doing so because a less discerning reader may judge you own your tone alone and disregard your logic entirely, rendering your argument moot."
I suppose we should also block ISIS websites because a less discerning reader than yourself wouldn't be able to prevent themselves from being convinced by their propaganda.
Consider the following, which is adapted from Pascal's Wager:
Let's say it costs $50k to replace a bad employee, and the drug test costs $50. Then the test only has to screen out one bad employee per thousand to pay for itself. It's inconceivable that the test is less effective than that, so by definition, it pays for itself.
I suspect that similar logic -- paying an small cost to ward off an incalculable threat -- is behind a lot of irrational HR behavior.
No HR employee has ever gotten paid for cost savings, just for ass covering.
A drug test is simply a checkbox that allows them to have even less responsibility for the person that they hired being at all capable at the job. (one of thousands)
At a job a few years back I was the manager of a small field maintenance crew. We were tasked with maintaining wireless equipment (antennas on towers and commercials buildings) for about 10,000 customers. Our company had been purchased recently and the policy of the new owners was that any time anyone was in any kind of 'incident' in a company vehicle, every employee in the vehicle had to be picked up by their manager, driven to the drug testing facility, tested, and driven home to their doorstep and then couldn't return to work until the test came back, sometimes several days later.
The last winter I was there we got hit with a major snowstorm. One of our towers on the top of a mountain was having problems, causing service interruptions for about 7,000 customers. Our safety policy mandated at least two technicians at a job like this, and one of my 3 technicians was out of town. I took one of the others with me and headed for the tower, which was about 2 miles up a dirt road that was now covered in about 2 feet of snow. Right after pulling on to the road, the company truck brushed up against a fence post that I didn't see because it had fallen over and was buried in the snow. The post left a scratch in one of the body panels of the truck that would have to be repaired. There was no way I'd be able to get it repaired without being asked about the drug test.
I called my manager and he made a few calls hoping we could get an exception to the drug test rule this time around. No luck. This was right around the time of the holidays - maybe even New Years Eve, if I remember correctly. The only drug testing center open was about an hour drive from where we were, in the opposite direction of where we lived. My manager had to come pick us up, take us to the center, drive us home, then go pick up my last remaining technician, drive back to the tower, drive up to the tower (by this time it was dark), and then start troubleshooting the problem. Turned a 90 minute outage in to a 6 hour outage. Then of course it took several days for the drug tests to come back, so my manager and one remaining technician had to deal with all of the aftermath of the storm in the same way.
I'll bet this one incident offset any positive outcomes that company has seen from drug testing, if indeed there have been any.
I think it was Slavoj Žižek who said one of the best way to fight back against stupid bureaucracy is to start following its rules as precisely as possible.
The policy you are talking about likely has more to do with lowering the cost of vehicle insurance/worker's comp insurance. Our company has the same policy and it helps keeps our rates low because we will be able to rule out alcohol/drugs as a factor in any company vehicle accident. And since you can't rule it out until you have the test... there is a bit of a chicken/egg problem there.
I'm surprised they make everyone in the vehicle take the test, but it makes sense if you think someone would be willing/able to cover for a driver that is impaired.
You are absolutely right on both counts. That's why they did it and that's why they had everyone in the truck take the test. They had also recently lost a major workers comp lawsuit which was probably frivolous, but they lost because of lax policies and lax policy enforcement. This policy was also one of many over corrections. Maybe there is no way around having a policy like this, but it still bit them in the ass at least this one time and probably many others.
Corporate culture is intrinsically tied to risk adversity and the reason it's allowed to spiral out of control is because of costs that are difficult or impossible to measure. If you can point to a risk and a cost associated with it while the detractors speak to morale or other intangibles you're going to win out in almost any big company. Is a drug testing policy going to keep you from hiring amazing employees? Quite possibly (the particulars of your industry and geographical area apply). But how do you measure that? No one is going to say "I didn't apply/take the job because I smoke marijuana on the weekends." Big companies miss out on opportunities and innovation because they allow risk adversity to take over their culture.
But what you describe isn't being risk-averse, its just prioritizing the obvious and easy-to-quantify risks (and ignoring other risks, including the higher-order risk of not conducting research to quantify the easy-to-identify-but-hard-to-quantify risks.)
But being willfully blind to broad categories of risk isn't being risk-averse.
Sure, but it is a symptom of a risk adverse culture. Risk adverse corporate cultures that pursue data that is difficult to quantify aren't exactly the norm. If your company culture values risk adversity why would you take the risk of measuring anything but the obvious? You might if you're that type of person, but risk adverse cultures select against risk takers.
> Sure, but it is a symptom of a risk adverse culture.
If there is aversion to risk involvedon, its not the company being risk-averse, its the individuals being risk-averse, and the culture having demonstrated that failing to address quantified risks to the company (but not failing to quantify and then, if appropriate, address identified-but-difficult-to-quantify risks to the company) will lead to negative personal consequences.
But its not so much the aversion to risk that is the issue here so much as the particular personal risk profile in those environments. An environment with the same cultural degree of aversion to risk, but different personal risk profiles, would produce different outcomes.
> If your company culture values risk adversity why would you take the risk of measuring anything but the obvious?
Because the lack of knowledge about a risk (especially one that is identified and qualitatively characterized, but not quantified) is itself a risk, and if your company really values risk avoidance, than identifying and quantifying risks (and not just addressing the easily identified and quantified risks while ignoring the easily-identified-but-hard-to-quantify ones and the hard-to-identify ones) would be valued and rewarded.
>If there is aversion to risk involvedon, its not the company being risk-averse, its the individuals being risk-averse
So would you be happy if instead of "risk averse company culture" I said "pervasive personal risk aversion driven by a company culture designed to punish failure and reward safe decision making"?
Drug testing is a test for the risk tolerance of the employee. This forum may encourage a community of very risk tolerant people, which is evident from the other comments in the thread, but the level of risk tolerance that a person must have to actively use illegal drugs is a pretty strong statement of that persons risk decisions. Anyone's individual opinion on the legality of drugs is irrelevant in this situation, as the judgement call is based on the risk and reward decision regarding something that can cost someone that is caught and prosecuted thousands of dollars, jail time, and a record for something entertainment related. Obvious exceptions for this would be legalized states and medical use.
So if you consider what jobs have high cost outcomes for risky behavior, it will probably align pretty closely with high drug test rates. Some of those would be food service, industrial, transportation, medical, and construction which makes up around 30% of the workforce, and the other 20% is probably covered by governments both state and federal along with their contractors.
>Obvious exceptions for this would be legalized states and medical use.
If we're talking about marijuana another exception is states where it's decriminalized. If you're passing on a fantastic candidate in California because they tested positive for marijuana you are arguably insane. Possession of marijuana under an ounce is a violation (ticket) that doesn't require a court appearance or a criminal record (similar to a traffic violation).
Actually, they do. I have seen organizations with separate HR policies, by state, to comply with the variances unique to each state (which is why employees in one state were subject to random testing, and the other only "for cause".)
As ConroyBumpus pointed out it's not unusual for companies to have per-state policies. That said, the differences are usually motivated by compliance with the law rather than serving the business and its goals.
I think you should consider the very real possibility that your calculation of risk is just outright incorrect.
You say this is about risk tolerance, but in reality, it is much more likely about whether or not someone calculates personal risk based on reality instead of based on what is and isn't legal.
I sure know which type of people I'd prefer to work with.
By the way, the most common drug addiction with daily users in the United States?
Caffeine.
Are coffee drinkers showing poor risk management and a high risk tolerance that means it would be a bad idea to employ them?
At a place I used to work they did random drug testing, and the only time I saw it happen was right at the beginning of a new year, my boss had one guy tested: the 100% straight-laced Asian Christian teetotaler. Maybe it was actually totally random (I highly doubt any of us used any kind of drugs), but I always figured his boss said, "you have to randomly drug test someone", and he didn't want to lose any of us so he picked the sure thing.
I can confirm. From outside the USA it looks extremely weird. But, you know, we do things that are weird for you.
For me the most ironic part is that by this rules you maybe will fire a really good worker that tried drugs. Why do you want to fire a good worker that doesn't causes any trouble?
Maybe makes sense for people, for example, that uses firearms at work. But it will not make sense if it is not complemented with some kind of mental health care.
Really, I see it as really really weird. I see that the journalist also sees it that way. But on the comments looks like it is not so much.
Is it really so usual to do this? Isn't this seen as an invasion of personal privacy?
Is it happening in states where weed is legal, too? I can't understand it.
My last workspace looked literally like these illustrations: a lot of folks smoking weed right in the office (open-air balcony), without any secrecy at all. And it's not even legal, although cops don't really care to enforce.
To drug test for a legal substance... Why would you agree to work at such a place?
Well, I can give you an anecdata point of one -- no. I know someone who recently got hired into a tech consulting position in Washington state, and there was no drug test.
Drug testing is a great way for an employer to get rid of someone when they have no cause to fire them. For example, a friend of mine had a job throwing luggage at the airport. They had a policy that allowed them to arbitrarily drug test people, but they never did, so my friend figured smoking a little weed now and then would be OK. Then one day, he hurts his back. He goes in to fill out the forms for workman's comp, and guess what the first thing they ask him to do is? You can't fire someone for getting hurt, but you can for flunking a drug test!
Drug testing is not an effective way to determine whether someone is using drugs. I live in a self-run sober living house, specifically an Oxford House. We do random drug tests now and then, but it's really just to deter "I bet I can get away with..." thinking, and we rarely catch anyone using like that. The reason we never catch people with randoms is twofold - drug tests are stupid easy to beat (and most addicts know how), and we catch people relapsing because when addicts relapse, it's really an all or nothing thing. People will think they can smoke a joint at a concert (because their problem is booze, not weed!), but invariably they come staggering in drunk out of their mind within a week.
I believe employer drug testing is harmful and invasive[1]. What employees do on their own time is their business. If someone has a problem with drugs or alcohol that effects their work, that will become obvious and HR can either fire them or, and this is what's been done with me in the past, force them to go to treatment. This means that even though I get drug tested regularly where I live, I will straight up refuse to work for a company that drug tests any of it's employees (again [1]).
[1] There are some jobs where a person being intoxicated on the job would put lives or property at risk. In this case, drug and alcohol testing seems acceptable. Of course, with alcohol testing, one wonders why employers don't use the readily available UA's and mouth swabs to test for alcohol use in the past few days...social acceptability is a big deal.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 128 ms ] threadI've never heard anyone suggest that is does. The reasons in favor of drug testing I've always heard is that you don't end up hiring people who are so incompetent as to be doing drugs while applying for new jobs. It's just one more piece of signalling.
I was drug-tested when I accepted employment at my current job. I had 3 or 4 days to make it in. Even if I was the type of person to regularly consume illegal drugs, I certainly would not have done so while applying for work.
I don't think it does much good, it's probably a waste of money, and I don't care what my coworkers smoke as long they're not doing it at work, but I also don't see how anyone can be incredulous or indignant about it.
My body is my business. You don't get to poke in it just because you want to.
I would probably avoid employment where I would be expected to contribute not just code but also pee.
P. S. I nearly don't drink[1], I don't smoke, I don't do drugs. Because I choose so.
I had to take a piss test to get a job where I drove a company box truck on a route every day, with a hazardous material endorsement. I was fresh out of high school, no other qualifications. I didn't then, nor do I now, have a problem with that piss test.
I'm a programmer now. I'd have a problem with a piss test--which I would readily pass, even if it were effective.
If this shit becomes the default (megacorp drones will think: why not extend this inexpensive procedure to everyony) we'll just live in even worse and more humiliating society than we do already.
You think, therefore you resist.
This insight also applies to a world where HR filters (or keyword filters) based on decades of social media posts.
Let me put this out there now, before you’ve read too far: I was not myself drug-tested before publishing this story. Neither was my editor, nor the copy editor, nor any of the designers, programmers, or art editors who worked on it. For all I know, the lot of them—the entire staff of Slate—could be huddled in a conference room right this very minute, passing joints around and shooting dope and snorting PCP. But ours is not the standard workplace in America.
It's really no wonder megacorps have a hard time retaining talented or creative people when the only ones that can endure it are required to have incredible tenacity and patience.
I was tempted to quit over it, but I didn't. I thought I was done with that shit, though.
They're not asking for sexual history, they're not asking for a full medical workup, or anything else unrelated. You're being paid to perform an intellectual task, and unless you're suggesting that drug use has no effect on one's mental state, I think it's relevant.
Many recreational drugs aren't bad. Marijuana is not harmful, psychedelics are generally non-addictive, and nearly everybody who's not Mormon or Muslim drinks. The problem - and risk - for an employer, is illegality.
Naturally you should consider what you fear more. Especially in the world that rapidly progresses towards decriminalization of recreational drugs.
The other thing not touched on too much is how cannabis (despite being one of the least harmful recreational drugs/drugs of abuse, and most commonly used) is one that can be detected the longest. I can go out on a bender drinking liquor and blowing lines of coke this weekend, get called in for a drug test on Thursday, and still piss clean.
...but if I went camping a few weeks ago and spent my evenings passing joints around the fire with friends, I could easily throw a flag for cannabinoids on a urinalysis weeks later.
It's really kinda messed up in that way because the logic of "well, what does it say about you that you couldn't lay off the stuff long enough to pass a drug test?" goes out the window with pot. If you like to take a few tokes in the evening after work, that can show up on a test weeks or months later, even if you quit while applying for jobs.
So yes, I think "well, what does it say about you that you couldn't lay off the stuff long enough to pass a drug test?" is still relevant for non-habitual users, and habitual users are exactly the ones these types of policies are designed to detect.
DUIs can be felonies, while drug possession is often only a misdemeanor.
Also, killing or maiming someone (including yourself) can have a detrimental effect on a person's ability to work.
My point is that drunk driving can lead to people missing work or being put in jail.
More people should know this. There is a great piece in the Washington Post today about how a false positive result from tea bags left in the trash (which was being sifted through by Sheriff's Deputies after they saw a homeowner shopping at a gardening store, giving them what apparently passes for PC these days) led to a no-knock raid with a SWAT team holding a middle-aged couple that doesn't use drugs at gunpoint for an afternoon.
I have relatively high income, I come from affluent family, I have some savings, I'm kind of well-off, I have no troubles finding jobs.
This means I can quit a job over drug testing. A lot of people can't - they have mouths to feed, no savings to cover it up, not too desirable on job market.
This means I have an obligation to abruptly terminate my employment in such situation. This will make employers consider drug testing policies against losing people like me. Which makes world less bad for everyone, even people who could not just quit.
This is where middle-class privilege comes in handy to shield us all.
Indeed you express the same kind of "smug[ness]" you accuse that person of: "I am doing so because a less discerning reader may judge you own your tone alone and disregard your logic entirely, rendering your argument moot."
I suppose we should also block ISIS websites because a less discerning reader than yourself wouldn't be able to prevent themselves from being convinced by their propaganda.
Let's say it costs $50k to replace a bad employee, and the drug test costs $50. Then the test only has to screen out one bad employee per thousand to pay for itself. It's inconceivable that the test is less effective than that, so by definition, it pays for itself.
I suspect that similar logic -- paying an small cost to ward off an incalculable threat -- is behind a lot of irrational HR behavior.
A drug test is simply a checkbox that allows them to have even less responsibility for the person that they hired being at all capable at the job. (one of thousands)
The last winter I was there we got hit with a major snowstorm. One of our towers on the top of a mountain was having problems, causing service interruptions for about 7,000 customers. Our safety policy mandated at least two technicians at a job like this, and one of my 3 technicians was out of town. I took one of the others with me and headed for the tower, which was about 2 miles up a dirt road that was now covered in about 2 feet of snow. Right after pulling on to the road, the company truck brushed up against a fence post that I didn't see because it had fallen over and was buried in the snow. The post left a scratch in one of the body panels of the truck that would have to be repaired. There was no way I'd be able to get it repaired without being asked about the drug test.
I called my manager and he made a few calls hoping we could get an exception to the drug test rule this time around. No luck. This was right around the time of the holidays - maybe even New Years Eve, if I remember correctly. The only drug testing center open was about an hour drive from where we were, in the opposite direction of where we lived. My manager had to come pick us up, take us to the center, drive us home, then go pick up my last remaining technician, drive back to the tower, drive up to the tower (by this time it was dark), and then start troubleshooting the problem. Turned a 90 minute outage in to a 6 hour outage. Then of course it took several days for the drug tests to come back, so my manager and one remaining technician had to deal with all of the aftermath of the storm in the same way.
I'll bet this one incident offset any positive outcomes that company has seen from drug testing, if indeed there have been any.
I'm surprised they make everyone in the vehicle take the test, but it makes sense if you think someone would be willing/able to cover for a driver that is impaired.
But being willfully blind to broad categories of risk isn't being risk-averse.
If there is aversion to risk involvedon, its not the company being risk-averse, its the individuals being risk-averse, and the culture having demonstrated that failing to address quantified risks to the company (but not failing to quantify and then, if appropriate, address identified-but-difficult-to-quantify risks to the company) will lead to negative personal consequences.
But its not so much the aversion to risk that is the issue here so much as the particular personal risk profile in those environments. An environment with the same cultural degree of aversion to risk, but different personal risk profiles, would produce different outcomes.
> If your company culture values risk adversity why would you take the risk of measuring anything but the obvious?
Because the lack of knowledge about a risk (especially one that is identified and qualitatively characterized, but not quantified) is itself a risk, and if your company really values risk avoidance, than identifying and quantifying risks (and not just addressing the easily identified and quantified risks while ignoring the easily-identified-but-hard-to-quantify ones and the hard-to-identify ones) would be valued and rewarded.
So would you be happy if instead of "risk averse company culture" I said "pervasive personal risk aversion driven by a company culture designed to punish failure and reward safe decision making"?
Drug testing is a test for the risk tolerance of the employee. This forum may encourage a community of very risk tolerant people, which is evident from the other comments in the thread, but the level of risk tolerance that a person must have to actively use illegal drugs is a pretty strong statement of that persons risk decisions. Anyone's individual opinion on the legality of drugs is irrelevant in this situation, as the judgement call is based on the risk and reward decision regarding something that can cost someone that is caught and prosecuted thousands of dollars, jail time, and a record for something entertainment related. Obvious exceptions for this would be legalized states and medical use.
So if you consider what jobs have high cost outcomes for risky behavior, it will probably align pretty closely with high drug test rates. Some of those would be food service, industrial, transportation, medical, and construction which makes up around 30% of the workforce, and the other 20% is probably covered by governments both state and federal along with their contractors.
If we're talking about marijuana another exception is states where it's decriminalized. If you're passing on a fantastic candidate in California because they tested positive for marijuana you are arguably insane. Possession of marijuana under an ounce is a violation (ticket) that doesn't require a court appearance or a criminal record (similar to a traffic violation).
You say this is about risk tolerance, but in reality, it is much more likely about whether or not someone calculates personal risk based on reality instead of based on what is and isn't legal.
I sure know which type of people I'd prefer to work with.
By the way, the most common drug addiction with daily users in the United States?
Caffeine.
Are coffee drinkers showing poor risk management and a high risk tolerance that means it would be a bad idea to employ them?
In some situations, it is rather difficult to terminate an employment. It gives employer's another out.
For me the most ironic part is that by this rules you maybe will fire a really good worker that tried drugs. Why do you want to fire a good worker that doesn't causes any trouble?
Maybe makes sense for people, for example, that uses firearms at work. But it will not make sense if it is not complemented with some kind of mental health care.
Really, I see it as really really weird. I see that the journalist also sees it that way. But on the comments looks like it is not so much.
Is it really so usual to do this? Isn't this seen as an invasion of personal privacy?
My last workspace looked literally like these illustrations: a lot of folks smoking weed right in the office (open-air balcony), without any secrecy at all. And it's not even legal, although cops don't really care to enforce.
To drug test for a legal substance... Why would you agree to work at such a place?
Drug testing is a great way for an employer to get rid of someone when they have no cause to fire them. For example, a friend of mine had a job throwing luggage at the airport. They had a policy that allowed them to arbitrarily drug test people, but they never did, so my friend figured smoking a little weed now and then would be OK. Then one day, he hurts his back. He goes in to fill out the forms for workman's comp, and guess what the first thing they ask him to do is? You can't fire someone for getting hurt, but you can for flunking a drug test!
Drug testing is not an effective way to determine whether someone is using drugs. I live in a self-run sober living house, specifically an Oxford House. We do random drug tests now and then, but it's really just to deter "I bet I can get away with..." thinking, and we rarely catch anyone using like that. The reason we never catch people with randoms is twofold - drug tests are stupid easy to beat (and most addicts know how), and we catch people relapsing because when addicts relapse, it's really an all or nothing thing. People will think they can smoke a joint at a concert (because their problem is booze, not weed!), but invariably they come staggering in drunk out of their mind within a week.
I believe employer drug testing is harmful and invasive[1]. What employees do on their own time is their business. If someone has a problem with drugs or alcohol that effects their work, that will become obvious and HR can either fire them or, and this is what's been done with me in the past, force them to go to treatment. This means that even though I get drug tested regularly where I live, I will straight up refuse to work for a company that drug tests any of it's employees (again [1]).
[1] There are some jobs where a person being intoxicated on the job would put lives or property at risk. In this case, drug and alcohol testing seems acceptable. Of course, with alcohol testing, one wonders why employers don't use the readily available UA's and mouth swabs to test for alcohol use in the past few days...social acceptability is a big deal.