Should job required drug testing be illegal?

[they don't love you like i love you]

Excluding jobs with potential safety risks that could result from drug use.

[Lief 🗽]

I can see the reasoning for pre-hiring drug tests. But required drug testing once you're employed should be completely illegal. If you come to work visibly intoxicated or your performance is otherwise affected, then your employer should be able to fire you, but what you do in your own time when you're off work is none of your employer's business otherwise.

[Mordecai]

Excluding jobs with potential safety risks that could result from drug use.

With that caveat, yes.

[Boris]

In all honesty, urine drug tests are such a joke that i'm kind of surprised that employers even bother (unless it's some image thing). They don't test for psychedelics, and everything else except weed has a 72 hour detection window at most. If you stop smoking pot the moment you're called for an interview, there should be more than enough time for it to clear out of your system by the time you're hired and given a drug test. Not to mention that hangovers resulting from alcohol consumption are probably the most detrimental to job performance, drug-wise.

[AggregateDemand]

Precondition of employment is fine. Perhaps drug testing can be part of an initial probationary period (6 months). After an employee is established, drug testing without cause should be illegal.

[ElectionsGuy]

Excluding jobs with potential safety risks that could result from drug use.

With that caveat, yes.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

No.  Making an employee or potential employee have to pay for it should be illegal, and time spent taking such tests should be on the clock as far as pay is concerned, but requiring the test itself should be legal.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Of course.

[Consciously Unconscious]

No.  Making an employee or potential employee have to pay for it should be illegal, and time spent taking such tests should be on the clock as far as pay is concerned, but requiring the test itself should legal.

I accidently voted yes, but this is what I meant. 
Employers should definitely be allowed to test.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I can see the reasoning for pre-hiring drug tests. But required drug testing once you're employed should be completely illegal. If you come to work visibly intoxicated or your performance is otherwise affected, then your employer should be able to fire you, but what you do in your own time when you're off work is none of your employer's business otherwise.

This is basically how I feel with the obvious exception of testing athletes.  I also don't think that drug tests, if performed for people who are already on the job, should be random.  That obviously defeats the purpose, but there's no reason someone should have to subject themselves to that without prior knowledge or agreement.  Your body is your business.

On the other hand, I wouldn't feel as strongly against it if such conditions were agreed to in an employee's contract.  But even then there's no reason to test someone if their work isn't being affected.

[Franzl]

Excluding jobs with potential safety risks that could result from drug use.

With that caveat, yes.

[Cory]

Excluding jobs with potential safety risks that could result from drug use.

With that caveat, yes.

[morgieb]

Excluding jobs with potential safety risks that could result from drug use.

With that caveat, yes.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I think required drug testing should be legal, but I honestly don't think it's a good use of resources. It  can screen out highly qualified candidates, especially in places like the tech industry, for reasons unrelated to job performance.

[Tieteobserver]

Totally legal. If you refuse to be tested, just refuse the job. If you're already employed and there's no clause on your contract which forbids the employer from requiring a test from you, he may ask it, and in this case, you either take the test, or the risk of being fired.

Its about simple things. Its about freedom.

[© tweed]

Excluding jobs with potential safety risks that could result from drug use.

With that caveat, yes.

ya'll realize that that 'caveat' can be extended to cover almost anything.  employer drug testing doesn't exist because they actually care if the employees are using forbidden drugs, but because they're trying to immunize themselves from lawsuits ("you can't blame us for coked-out Miguel dropping the crate, we did our due dilligence!")

barring that and all things held equal most employers would prefer not to drug test, as positive tests shrink the labor pool and thus drive up wages for those who come up clean.

[Indy Texas]

It's worth pointing out that physical safety is not the only reason employers want drug-free employees.

If you're paying someone $10 an hour to be a cashier at your store, where they have ample access to the cash in the register and in the safe in the back, and they develop a predilection for marijuana or Oxycontin or something else, you don't think they might be inclined to resort to extraordinary measures to finance that new habit?

[Cory]

I would be better if "drug testing" wasn't code word for "weed testing".

[Repub242]

I think that drug tasting should be mandatory to hold a job.