Should drug testing be allowed in the worlk place
...tion and may not hire a pregnant women or lay off workers because of their medical back round. These are just a few instances where the urine test could be questioned. (Charles P. Cozic pg 138) Urine tests can not test drugs directly. This means that urine traces substances that have been taken previously. These substances that show up in urine samples are no longer active in the body. For instance a person who may have smoked marijuana on the week end may test positive on a urine test. Although that same person job performance may not have been effect because of what he or she did on their free time on the week end. Another interesting fact is that if a person snorted cocaine on their way to a drug test may test negative because that drug is not yet metabolized in the body. False positives are drug test that turn out positive and in actuality the person did not use drugs previously. False positive tests can be attributed to human error or sample contamination. There are many over the counter products that can make a drug test positive. Certain antibiotics such as Penicillin, cold remedies, diet pills, pain relievers, cough syrups, nasal sprays, ear drops and even dental treatment can play a factor. Novocain used at the dentist office could result in a failed drug test for the use of cocaine. Most people heard the rumor “well if you eat poppy seeds before a drug test you will fail”, well the rumor is true. Poppy seeds come from an opiate and may show up on a drug test as an opiate. Companies choose to use a less expensive drug test to test there employers. The problem companies run into with these higher quality and more expensive drug tests is that they cost too much and are very time consuming hence they don’t chose to use them. Even if some companies chose these higher quality tests they still have shown to give a false positive rate up to ten percent of the time. Since companies are choosing these low quality tests the error rates are even higher. Surveys conducted in the United States have shown error rates up to as high as thirty percent. Some of these errors are contributed to poor quality control. (What’s wrong with Drug Testing?) Employers have the right to know if there employees are drunk or high on the job. The main concern for an employer is safety and the quality of their company. The Urine test can not show weather an employee is drunk or high on the job. Job performance can not be tested by a urine analysis. Urine test do not prove that the work place is safer or more productive. Studies show that a great majority of drug positive workers are just as reliable as non drug users. Since the urine test can not detect impairment on the job employers should drop drug testing and start performing performance tests on their employees. Performance testing will test peoples hand eye coordination and response time. These types of test already exist. The space program NASA use these test on their astronauts. Air line companies also test their pilots with these types of tests. Performance tests are much more conclusive by the standards of public safety. A performance test does not invade people’s privacy. Another alternative to drug testing is companies could set harsher rules for employees being impaired on the job. Some companies also have supervisors that evaluate there workers. For instance this supervisor would notice things such as slow productivity and mistakes that are not usually made. (Drug testing rights) ...