Drug testing, employee

Finkle, B.S., Blanke, R.V., and Walsh, M.J., Technical, Scientific and Procedural Issues of Employee Drug Testing, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C., 1990. 

Murphy, K. R., Thornton, G. C., and Reynolds, D. H. (1990), College Students Attitudes toward Employee Drug Testing Programs, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 43, pp. 615-31. 

There is an alarming number false negatives and false positives in the drug testing industry. That s a fact. And what it means is that competent, law abiding workers are unfairly being denied employment and losing jobs. The employers evaluation of the employees competency is dependent on the competency of the lab. Even when the lab is competent, there are still false positives due to other factors, all of which are outside the control of the employee. 

It is impairment we want to test for - not lifestyle preference. This is where performance impairment tests comes in. Impairment tests use a computer to assess the employees hand-eye coordination, and a variety of other variables that are related to the task, not the lifestyle of the employee. The test only takes 30 seconds. It is superior to drug testing in terms of cost, timeliness and accuracy of results, and overall liability [Fine]. 

Whatever you do, do not drug test Respect the privacy of your employees lifestyle, and do it with pride. Some companies that do not drug test post bulletins around the workplace which proudly state the companies privacy policy. Also, be sure to reward yourself by adding your company to The Non-Testers List for free advertizing and positive publicity. 

Drug Testing at Work A Guide for Employers Employees... 

State laws regulating workplace drug testing vary. Some states ban or limit the use of random tests without individual suspicion. Some states also provide for some form of appeals process or retesting for employees found to test positive. 

The U.S. Supreme Court upholds mandatory drug testing for U.S. Customs Service employees in sensitive positions. 

This coalition of businesses, business groups, and individuals promotes efforts to reduce drug and alcohol abuse in the workplace in order to protect the health and safety of workers as well as business productivity. It also supports drug-testing programs when done under proper guidelines to protect employees rights. 

Brian had to have a drug test to get his first job. The company was really strict, and they required all new employees to have a hair-sample drug test. It didn t seem too bad Brian just had to let someone cut some of his hair. He knew that he had taken some of those blue pills his friend Andy had, and he smoked pot, but he had stopped doing all that one month ago because he knew he would need to pass the test. But the hair sample easily showed his drug use over the past three months, and even being clean for one month didn t make a difference. Brian didn t get the job. And although he did get in trouble with his parents, he at least didn t get in trouble with the law. 

Increasingly, in both private and public sectors, employees are subject to urinalysis drug testing whether use is suspected or not. Failure to pass that test can jeopardize employment. The most common illegal drug turned up by... 

Another fact marijuana opponents point to as an indication that marijuana may be addictive after all is the rise in recent years of marijuana addiction treatment programs. At first glance, this would seem to confirm the existence of marijuana addicts, but on closer examination, even this situation is ambiguous. Corresponding to the increase in treatment programs, there has been an increase in drug testing in the workplace, schools, and elsewhere. When an employee fails a... 

The likelihood that an employee who tests positive is actually using drugs is only 33%. In other words, a person who tests positive is more likely to be a nonuser than a user. 

In order to back up the hypothesis that it is the false positives that lead to the apparently skewed results. Equation (15.13) can be tested with two new sets of numbers. First, if the reliability of the positive test is increased from 99% to 99.9% then the chance that an employee who tests positive is a drug user goes from 33.2% to 33.4%—a trivial improvement in the quality of the result. However, if the chance of a false positive falls from 1% to 0.1% the final result shifts from 33% to 83%—a significant improvement. 

Companies drug screen potential employees before hiring them, then drug screen their workers at random. There is no schedule. It is almost like drawing names from a hat. It is not uncommon for a worker to be drug tested as often as three times a year. Usually, the... 

T/F) Companies drug test potential employees before hiring them and then at random after hiring them. 

The number of regulations motor carriers and their employees must follow can be mind-boggling. Compliance with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) alone ranges from employee drug and alcohol testing to vehicle inspection and maintenance. 

An MRO s medical review of an employee s drug test results does not constitute an established doctor-patient relationship. 

What happens when an employee does not provide a sufficient amount of urine for a drug test ... 

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