Unpopular Opinion

That's an American thing.

I run a manufacturing business; you oversimplify.

Quite coincidentally my HR person came to me just an hour ago and told me that two people have complained of a coworker smoking on breaks and at lunch and being high on the job.

He drives a heavy forklift. Am I to ignore the situation? If I do I expose my employees to danger and my small business to lawsuits.

How are the employees that reported it supposed to react if I say "Whatever, that's his business."

To a large extent businesses have their hands tied by the rules and laws of society.

You should see how they do it in the service industry. No tests to get the job, but if you're ever hurt at work and entitled to workman's comp they give you a test and if you've smoked weed anytime in the last month the presumption is that you were high at work and not only do they not have to pay you for your injury but they just flat-out fire you.

You know it's all bullshit because they don't/can't test for alcohol dependence, which is way more devastating to a person's productivity than cannabis.

It really depends on the position and what they're testing for. Do you really want a heavy machinery operator to be a cokehead or heroin addict? There is a real risk of them killing someone. Testing someone in a job like IT for smoking weed? That's a different story.

Also a lot of the time they only test you post-hiring if you fucked up somehow.

It can definitely be used against people (usually the disenfranchised) though to prevent them being hired or to get them fired.

Imagine thinking "my employees are performing great but maybe I should check their pee to be sure"

Damn, América really is crazy. I wouldn't accept such tests and I've never even tried drugs.

They can't do this in Europe unless it's actually dangerous for the job, medical professional, operating heavy industrial machinery, cop etc. It's just because the US has no worker rights laws.

You don't want someone who is still high driving a train, but it's probably fine if all I need to do is off work.

In Canada (and I think in most of the world) it's illegal to randomly test employees unless you have reasonable cause.

Testing of an individual employee may be allowed in specific cases where there is reasonable cause to believe the employee is impaired by drugs or alcohol while on duty or is unable to work safely due to impairment from alcohol or drugs.

I am so glad my new job doesn't test unless if there is an industrial accident or in very specific dangerous positions where it is warranted. Handbook basically says don't show up to work fucked up. What you do on your own time is your business.

It is a huge breach of privacy, especially when you have to start disclosing legally prescribed medications that they test for. Why a company has a right to my body, my medical history, or any other private information is nuts.

The fact that there is a system, run by Equifax of course, where employers can choose to hand your work history, paystubs, and other information to and then other companies can then pay to get access to is also nuts. You can request to have it frozen, but who the hell even knows to do this? It is messed up.

https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze

The main thing is, as long as you don't show up to work blitzed I don't see how anyone should give a shit. Whatever you do at home is your business, provided you leave it at home.

That's the policy at my business. IDGAF if you spend all of your off hours at the bottom of a bottle or on top of cloud nine, just don't bring it to work.

Additional problems include: If there is a workplace accident and someone gets injured, both OSHA and insurance companies immediately come knocking to try to do drug tests on everyone involved purely as an attempt to shift blame and deny claims. We don't have any heavy equipment here or anything so I'm not too worried about that, but there are businesses in America that would get fucked in a situation like that so they're kind of forced to enact drug bans even if management doesn't want to on a personal level.

I agree, but some jobs I can see why, like if you're an air traffic controller, operate heavy machinery, etc. Government jobs and Government contractors ($100k+ contracts) also require them but that's a government job...

My biggest fear is failing one when I haven't taken anything. I never have, but I know people who have. I've also known people who have passed after getting totally blitzed the night before. They are wildly inaccurate, aside from being an invasion of privacy.

I worked for a US company in the past and in my contract there was a phrase that I'm going to paraphrase. "Can be sent to unannounced drug tests (US only)"

This isn't a worldwide issue.

Like ok maybe drug testing someone who is driving/flying a bunch of people around…I kinda get it. Safety of the public etc.

But drug testing at an office job? Come fucking on. That’s political face. Nothing more.

The fact any employee feels like it has the right to what I go after work is insane. This means drugs testing, second jobs, only-fans/ porn or anything similar.

You're right, but also it's to get cheaper business insurance. Because businesses that don't test have to pay more to insure themselves. If you own a business, you have to buy insurance for the business to ensure that if your business gets sued, it's the business that takes the hit, not you personally.

All it does is punish addicts trying to get back on their feet. For anyone else, you can just get a drink to clear you out the day before or just pretend that your prescription medications are causing a false positive.

Always thought they were ridiculous and intrusive. So long as you show up sober and do your job properly who the fuck cares what you do in your off time? I'm the director for a nonprofit. I'm a huge stoner and my boss (executive director) was a hippie back in the day lol. I love hearing her wild drug stories from the 70's and 80's lmao. I'm also pretty open with my employees about the fact that I smoke weed. Turns out most of them do too! I always come well dressed, usually in a suit with a clean haircut, so I love seeing their faces when I tell them I'm a pot head lmao

Anyway, my employees are all very hard workers and I can tell they enjoy working here. The fuck would I ruin that by drug testing?

I completely agree.

Many years ago I applied for a McJob at Worst Buy. They had mandatory drug testing even (especially?) for the lowest level job I was applying for.

I couldn't pee when I went to the medical place for the test. Not sure I recall correctly but I think I went back a second time and drank a lot of water and was full of piss so I could do it. They never got back to me. No idea why. I guess they picked up the nicotine and didn't want to hire a cigarette smoker.

When I think about this now I'm pretty horrified that I even did the pee test. It would be exceptional circumstances for me to do this for anything employment related now. I'm very clean now but it is none of their fucking business. It does surprise me that it is legal.

Does this community work like r/unpopularopinion where you're supposed to upvote if you disagree and downvote otherwise? I agree, but I'm not sure which action to take.

As drug use is nomalizing, I can understand that companies normalize drug tests, too. Even as a normal person I prefer jobs that require a certain level of precision or which could be dangerous when mistakes are made to be performed by people who are neither drunk nor high.