Hiring hurdle: Finding workers who can pass a drug test
By Jackie Calmes, New York Times
SAVANNAH, Ga. — A few years back, the heavy-equipment manufacturer JCB held a job fair in the glass foyer of its sprawling headquarters near here, but when a throng of prospective employees learned the next step would be drug testing, an alarming thing happened: About half of them left.
That story still circulates within the business community of this historic port city. But the problem has gotten worse.
All over the country are struggling to find workers who can pass a pre-employment drug test.
That hurdle partly stems from the growing ubiquity of drug testing, at corporations with big human resources departments, in industries like trucking where testing is mandated by federal law for safety reasons, and increasingly at smaller companies.
But data suggest employers’ difficulties also reflect an increase in the use of drugs, especially marijuana — employers’ main gripe — and also heroin and other opioid drugs much in the news.
Thousands of qualified candidates are ignored every year for jobs while alcoholics are passed right through the system. The lack of actual cogent consideration given to this is disappointing to say the least.
I can easily pass a drug test…but I never will. Because I think that mandatory drug testing in an amazing invasion of privacy and often a sign of a specific company culture (when it isn’t something required by Government regs). The article failed to mention that Reagan wanted his Cabinet to take a drug test to show that it was good legislation. George Schultz refused and would have resigned his post because he didn’t feel an employer of the Government had the right to drug testing without cause.
Those that require a drug test should be required to take an I. Q. test.