It was deemed unconstitutional in Raab v.s U.S treasury but the Americans waive their rights every time they sign a consent form.This whole issue harkens back to Ronald Reagan and that administrations idea that employers could do whatever they want to you as long as you receive a paycheck from them.There are no workers rights here in the U.S.A once they destroyed the unions.We now have a republican presidential candidate who advocates child labor laws be eradicated.

I worked in California and had to take a drug test before my first job in the pharmaceutical industry. Based on the number of people waiting to pee in a cup, drug testing is/was quite an industry. This was 12 years ago.

SO is the prison industry and thats drug related also.

While i agree with you on the personal liberty front to some extent (it is illegal in most jurisdictions to do drugs, but a lot of things are illegal for which we don't get tested), it becomes a picker question when you are dealing with employees who either handle money (due to the costs associated with drug use), deal with legal issues (due to the fact that they are breaking the law) or people who require fine motor skils for their jobs (factory workers, some food service jobs).

Incest is illegal but we don't go around testing people if they slept with their siblings, so it is a fair point. I just wonder how to reconcile the fact that some jobs require drug-free employees with the non-erosion of personal liberties, which happens more often in the US than people would like to admit. For example, in the US litigation climate, it is appropriate for a drunk employee who lost his arm in a factory accident to file suit against the employer. Who wins here?

Where I disagree is that not all jobs can be performed by people under the influence of anything, Burroughs and Freud had "creative" jobs where either their drug use helped their creativity, or they could schedule their professional obligations around their drug use, OR, like many coked out-adderalled out lawyers I have known, certain drugs helped attain certain professional obligations. It isn't going to be the same case for a factory worker or a bus driver. And even if a lawyer cokes up to meet a court filing, he still has to be sober at some point to meet clients. One would hope.

Background checks are also a normal part of job applications.

Would anyone consider those to be an invasion of privacy? Just wondering.

Do you really think that someone who smokes a joint on their own time has an integrity issue?

I know plenty of watchmakers and machinists here; I'd say probably 60-70% smoke weed at least semi-regularly, of those maybe half do it at least several times a week if not daily. For years and years. Without issue at all at work.

I suppose it could be viewed as a simple black and white legal issue, but I think it's a shame to single out people who smoke up from time to time. As I recall it takes about a month for one to piss clear. There are numerous legally prescribed drugs (especially in the U.S.) that one can take and be legal at work that will have a real effect on performance as opposed to someone who smoked up over the weekend.

Whatever. I don't do any drugs harder than aspirin, and work for myself . The employers that employ the above mentioned folks I know seem to know better than test- they'd lose a good portion of their workforce and some of the best at their jobs at that.

It depends, if I apply for a job as a kiddy-herder in Kindergarten I would expect a background check, I could have been convicted for selling children into slavery down the mines, infact I would want one and have the negative result mentioned on my CV.
However being the pixel-pusher and PhotoShop god that I am I would take a background check as cheek.
There you go, pure poetry.

No, I don't consider criminal background checks to be a problem. Typically, you should have a certain amount of education and experience in order to do the job, and the employer should be able to check up on this. Similarly, if you have been convicted of a violent crime, fraud, etc. where other people have been hurt by your actions, your future employer should know, that is only fair.

Contrast this with a drug test, which checks for behavior by consenting adults behind closed doors which ideally should affect no one at all, and this becomes a major privacy issue. If drug use starts to lead to erratic behavior or performance problems in the workplace, then the behavior should be punished up to and including termination, but before then that is a private matter for adults.

Drugs really should be treated the same as alcohol. Expecting sobriety on the clock is rational and there is nothing wrong with it. Legislating and snooping on private behavior off the clock is wrong. Imagine an employer screening for alcohol use in hair samples. "Sorry Mr. Dethbunny, we see you appear to be drinking copious amounts of Scotch on the weekends -- we're afraid we can't hire you." Now apply this same mentality to the engineer that might smoke cannabis on the weekends. Ridiculous, right?

Cause working in IT, you could not afford the good stuff anyway and if you could would you rather spend it on some electronic gadgets instead...

To bring back the famous research: Every day on normal week days are 21000 lines of cocaine consumed in the city of Zurich alone. (http://www.tagesschau.sf.tv/Nachrich...okain-gesnifft)

Introducing drug tests as a requirement for investment banker would hit the Swiss banking sector worse than giving up the banking secret to the US tax guys...

Hmm! Just how long is a line?

You are completely right- I think America has more problems (recreational Xanax or Adderall anyone?) than someone burning the fern and those should be regulated more than they are.

A weekend joint won't mess up someone at work on Monday but I do think if someone went out and toked on their lunch break, which was more what I was alluding to, is the issue in performance-related jobs.

And it does become an integrity issue, albeit an unfair one, if smoking pot is against the law, because it means the person is breaking the law.

But like you mentioned, people cracked out daily on perfectly legal prescription drugs are going to have more of an integrity issue IRL than a weekend smoker.

Yeah, personally, I have a problem with the way marijuana is legislated in the US also, but that is another debate. I've known plenty of folks who've been model employees and toked recreationally. I've also known plenty of borderline alcoholics who have been model employees. Anyway, I was never happy about being tested, but it didn't bother me that much, I guess - not enough for me to forgo the salary.

I was just wondering, because usually a credit check can be included in a background check, and this could also be seen as checking up on private behavior. I mean, can a guy who racks up a ton of personal debt be trusted to handle money matters for a company too? Just playing devil's advocate.

I was completely shocked at just how this drug is abused by workaholics in the US. I'd wager that over half of my wife's coworkers were on this stuff, and obtaining it illegally.

I would be a big fan of eliminating all drug testing, and instead spending all that money on intelligence testing. most of the dumbest people I come across in the workplace every day are straighter than an arrow.

You are fully within your rights to refuse, it is a breach of your human rights.

My expousre to American's of late, in a working and personal capacity, has surprised me on this front.

They seem to be inclined to take a pill for all sorts. Not of the mainstream illegal kind, medicinal. I know we all take pills at time for pain relief or what not, but my point being it seems a bit more of a culture thing, theres a pill that can solve anything.

I believe it is in part because of the marketing in the US and how there are commericals for this kind of stuff all the time, which you dont see in the UK for example