FREE ESSAY ON DRUG TESTING IN THE WORKPLACE

DRUG TESTING IN THE WORKPLACE

As widespread drug use is on the rise, many employers have begun to worry about the
performance of their employees. Absenteeism, injuries, loss of productivity, employee
morale, theft and fatalities are just some of the causes of drug use in the workplace.
The idea of drug testing among workers has developed from society's concern over a
perceived increase in the use of drugs and the relation between drug use and impairment,
with resultant risks to the worker, fellow workers and the public. As early as 1987, 21%
of employers had instituted drug-testing programs. Employers have begun to think that
mass drug tests are the answer to their problems. What many of these employers don't know
is that there are many problems that surround drug testing at work. One of the biggest of
these problems is whether or not it is constitutional to conduct drug tests on the
employees. Employers fail to educate themselves with established or recent laws about
drug testing in the workplace and about human rights. Also, mass, low-cost screening
tests may not be reliable or valid. Alcohol testing does not differentiate casual
drinking from alcohol dependence or alcoholism. Drug tests can create an untrustworthy
environment for the employees. There are better ways to address substance abuse. Drug
testing in the workplace is an important issue for all of Canada's labour force,
regardless if it's you're first job or if you've had a steady job for 30 years.
Many employees, who have had to subjugate themselves to degrading and demeaning drug
tests, feel that these tests violate their constitutional rights. It is an infringement
on their privacy. In order for the tests to make sure there is no specimen tampering
there must be an administrator present to oversee every action the employee makes during
their drug test. For tests such as hair and breath testing this does present a major
problem, but for urine tests men and women alike are disturbed by the direct observation
of their urine collection. Unfortunately, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
applies only to the laws and actions of the federal and provincial governments and their
agencies. It does not apply to the policies and actions of private employers. The Charter
therefore does not protect private sector employees from unreasonable drug testing. It is
necessary to state that currently an employer can terminate an employee's job if the
employee has been using illegal drugs and alcohol, but only if such use is not considered
a disability. Alcohol or drug addiction can be viewed as a physical and/or mental
disability. In Ontario, the Ontario Human Rights, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism Act
prohibit employment discrimination based on disability. Employers have a responsibility
to accommodate employees who are disabled. Drug testing has not been proven to be against
the Canadian Human Rights Commission. In order to institute a drug testing policy into a
company which complies with human rights legislation, an employer must be able to
demonstrate that the testing is related to job performance, and not just substance abuse.
Many employees feel that drug testing is a way of discriminating against people who might
have a drug and/or alcohol disability. An example of such discrimination is found in
Entrop v. Imperial Oil Ltd. The Ontario Board of Inquiry found that Imperial Oil Limited
discriminated against Martin Entrop, a senior operator at the Sarnia Refinery, because of
a disability. The Board of Inquiry found that under a new Alcohol and Drug Policy
introduce in 1992, Imperial Oil employees in safety-sensitive positions were required to
notify management if they currently had or had previously had a substance abuse problem.
After Mr.Entrop heard that this policy was coming into effect he informed his employer
that he had had an alcohol problem about ten years earlier, that he had attended
Alcoholics Anonymous, and that he had abstained from using alcohol since 1984. Mr. Entrop
had been an employee for seventeen years and he had had no problems at work that were
related to substance abuse, but Imperial Oil's policy required that Mr.Entrop be
immediately removed form his current position. This example clearly shows that it is
discriminatory to terminate a person's job because of a past or present disability and
that there are constitutional matters involved with drug testing in the workplace. The
lab procedure is a second invasion of privacy. Urinalysis reveals not only the presence
of illegal drugs, but also the existence of many other physical and medical conditions
including pregnancy. Drug testing is an invasion of privacy that is to be abhorred and it
is clearly against our constitutional rights. Drug testing is designed to detect and
punish conduct that is usually engaged in off-duty and off employer's premises, in other
words, in private. 
There is much confusion about the accuracy of drug tests. In fact claims of billions of
dollars lost in employee productivity are based on guesswork, not real evidence. Urine
tests cannot test for drugs directly. They test for traces of substances taken before the
test which are no longer active in your system but can still be detected. The most
accurate methods of urine analysis are time-consuming and expensive, and even then can be
wrong at least 10% of the time. Even though these drug tests are the most accurate, more
often then not employers opt for a less accurate drug test because the more accurate ones
are too much of an expense for the company. These cheaper drug tests often have an error
rate of 30%, which means that 30% of all people that take these drugs tests are falsely
accused and may be fired from their jobs. Also, traces of legal medicines, such as cough
syrups, nasal sprays and eardrops can be confused with those of illegal drugs. Even the
poppy seeds found in baked goods can produce a positive result for heroin. Furthermore,
drug tests are not work-related because they do not measure impairment that occurs during
work hours. A positive drug test only shows that a drug was taken at some time in the
past. Also, the drug test does not distinguish between occasional and habitual use, the
same is also true with alcohol testing. Another reason that drug testing isn't very
reliable is the fact that drug testing does not even detect all drug users. This is true
because most stronger drugs such as cocaine do not last in the user's blood stream as
long as someone who has used marijuana for example. This means that the weekend user of
cocaine is much more likely than the weekend user of marijuana to pass a weekday drug
test. Also drug tests may not reveal very recent drug use. For example, a worker who does
not smoke marijuana regularly decides to smoke marijuana in the middle of the work day, a
drug test may come back negative because mot enough time has passed for drug metabolites
to appear in the urine. With all these factors working against the accuracy of drug
tests, not to mention the occasional error of the people who process the specimens at the
lab and the false-negatives that occur when an employee deliberately decides to sabotage
a drug test, it is hardly worth it for an employer to go through with the trouble of a
drug tests when the true drug users, the ones that are harmful to the company, are not
pointed out anyways. 
There are better ways to address substance abuse in the workplace then to rely on the
very unreliable method of drug and alcohol testing. These ways are more cost-effective,
time-effective and have a much better impact in the workplace; also they do not raise the
same privacy issues that drug tests do. An effective alternative to drug testing is to
train supervisors to confront, and refer impaired employees to Employee Assistance
Programs or other intervention programs. This strategy leads to increased employee
acceptance of treatment and a subsequent improvement in overall job performance.