The constitution prohibits unlawful search so how is drug testing so prevalent across America?

Some cases involving the military are based on national security while others involve public safety and are used both with and without probable cause for basis of search.

Recent outcries about steroid use in sports call for mandatory drug testing as basis for employment.

The question for debate: Is drug testing without “probable cause” unconstitutional?

Drug testing news site:
http://www.cleartest.com/testinfo/

Random drug testing by government agencies (law enforcement, etc.) without probable cause seems pretty clearly unconstitutional to me. I suppose that a case could be made that in circumstances where certain groups of citizens have lost their full civil rights, either involuntarily (prison) or voluntarily (military), mandatory random drug testing would be constitutional (whether or not it would be a good idea.) (It seems that the public school system puts students in the same category as prisoners.)

American society has created the image of drug abuse as so serious a problem that normal limits on the goverment have been abandoned. Take, for example, the seizure of assets from people who are only suspected of drug dealing. Here's an article about an attempt -- which should not be necessary -- to stop this insane abuse of civil rights, in the state of Washington:

Bill Would End Seizure of Drug Suspects' Assets



They have to come up with a special law to prevent the police from taking property from people who have not yet been convicted of a crime. That just stuns me. The frenzy over the War on Drugs reminds me of the frenzy over the War on Terrorism.

Of course, random drug testing by non-government entities, be definition, can't be unconstitutional. It's just a useless and degrading abuse of power.

The question for debate: Is drug testing without “probable cause” unconstitutional?

We still have the right to contract, and if your condition of employment includes random drug testing, you voluntarily accept that other rights may be infringed upon.
I have seen some who took the job, accepting the condition of random drug testing, then quit the first time they got selected. One was hardly random, tho, he was acting very strangely for some time.

I tend to agree with these statements. In addition to the above circumstances I could add government agencies where civilians are given security clearances as drug addiction could cause vulnerability to national security.


Here I think if the law is to be the law it should be consistent. If the government can’t invade your privacy then your employer shouldn’t be placed above the law when one is vulnerable to the employer as the government.

In the case of sports professionals using steroids clearly the employer is the only source of employment for such talent. To give up constitutional rights for a private employer elevates them (the employer) to the level of national security interest of examples provided above. If an employer demands the need to determine illegal drug use by employees for concern over safety or related task then likewise, the employer should have access to equally stimulating prescribed drugs. To have such information would allow an employer to discriminate employment practices to reduce health care contributions along with factors of training selection and promotion.

If drug abuse in the private sector is a problem the government should amend the constitution defining search invasion on privacy or simply prohibit it.

I disagree with a condition of employment including privacy invasion. I think an employer may take many other tracks to identify bad performance other than invading privacy. For example prior to selection for employment subject a nominee to a battery of tests such as hand and eye coordination, reaction test and so on. If behaviors exist to indicate performance is poor then re-administer the tests.

I agree an employer has the right to partially remove freedom of speech in protection of patents, copyrights and the like but do not see privacy invasion on this same level.

I'm a little confused on how the question was worded. Drug testing without probable cause...................the whole point of testing is to verify use or head off a problem. Eratic behaviour or driving crazy might prompt law enforcement to insist on a drug test and remove that person as a danger to themselves or others. It also might identify something else besides drugs - a stroke or psychotic episode.

Certain mental patients will refuse to take their meds and behave strangely, so an absence of drugs could explain a condition.

With lawsuits a real threat to any business, you don't want a half stoned engineer hooking up a gas line where the water should be in a drawing. Some quality control break downs of failed equipment requires recovery of dangerous chemicals during that process. Someone drunk or high could kill or maim other employees. A job requirement by an employer for the employees to be sober at work really isn't unreasonable. And if you're doing something illegal in the first place, it's not like you'd go to your supervisor that day and tell them you're too loaded to do your job.

Drug use has become too common and the only way to make sure you're clean and sober is to insist on random drug tests. Most companies will offer drug or alcohol programs to first offenders if they come to the company first before they get caught. My husband's business is a zero tolerance if they catch you. You do have the right to appeal and re-test, you can re-apply after a certain time for re-hire.

The ultimate civil rights violation at work is to be killed by some drugged out or drunk fellow employee. No work environment is 100% safe, but drug testing is just one step in providing a safe work place.

I think you are confusing drug tests with sobriety test. Nobody has any problem with a company that requires their employees to be sober at work, however, If I smoked a pound of weed 2 weeks ago, I would still be 100% sober today. If I drank a keg of Everclear 2 weeks ago, I'd be sober today. The problem is that through drug tests, employers invade the privacy of the employee in a manner that has no justification. It is none of my company's business what I do after work. ZERO. And I never cease to be amazed when people give away their freedom for a false sense of security.

I disagree to an extent. The problem isn't what you did two weeks ago, it's what you are doing and the condition you are in at work. I've worked with people who came back from break reeking of booze or an un-tobacco product being smoked. They THINK they are just fine and they aren't. They operate machinery and get a finger cut off and then they are suing because the company should have had a program in place to keep this idiot safe from himself. I had another co-worker brained by a run away pipe on a hoist operated by guy who was legally drunk.

I don't want those people any where near me - and lawsuits can break a smaller company and then no one has a job there anymore.

You want to smoke weed, then find a place to work that doesn't care if it comes up in a test. Everclear isn't going to pop up in your system if you drank it two weeks ago, but the weed will. Life is full of choices - employers tell you what the rules are and if you can't follow them, do something else.

This is a really interesting thread. There are people saying that companies have no business doing such things unless they specifically provide for them in employment contracts.

In other threads on employment law, when I've weighed in on behalf of employees against employers, I've been told that this interferes with a businessman's rights over their property - meaning thier business. So it seems that a person's right to do what they like with their propety is clashing with the rights of another person (the employee) to do what they want during their private time. Where is the balancing line to be drawn?

I can see that employers have the right not to want intoxicated people working for them - it could be quite dangerous. And further, that this right does place extra responsibilities (and somewhat curtail the rights) of employees, at least to the point that my employer can't only sack me for drinking on duty quite fairly, but that if I drink in my own time and am still drunk (or hungover) to the point where it interferes with my job performance, he can sack me for that too. So far, so fair, as far as I can tell.

Playing devil's advocate (as I must - I'm no fan of placing employer needs against employees except where absolutely necessary) - two key facts mitigate against employees in drug testing:

First, we simply do not yet fully understand all the effects of all the likely drugs to be tested for. Even cannabis - widely held to be less harmful than tobacco - is thought by some to play a part in the development of some mental health problems, notably psychosis. It hasn't been studied to nearly the same extent as tobacco or alcohol, because they are legal and it is not. Which brings me to my second point....

We're talking abut illegal drugs here. If a prospective employer wanted to check my bank records to see if I'd been illegally laundering money, or stealing from them, I might not like the intrusion enough to decide to work elsewhere. But I could respect their decision to try to protect themselves, even if I disagreed.

How much more true is this of illegal drug abuse? Or just illegal drug use? They aren't testing for aspirin or penicillin, after all, which can be abused - just cannabis, cocaine, heroin, etc.

It seems that at least some of the indignation at this idea would be more usefully directed towards a campaign for legalisation of such drugs, rather than against companies wanted to test for them. If they are legal, then businesses have that much less of a case for wanting to test for them.

1. If you drank a large amount of alcohol 2 weeks prior to a test at work, it would not still be in your system upon urine analysis.

2. If you use illicit drugs that remain in your system for a period of two weeks, typcially there is little way to discern whether you used them at 7:00 am that morning or 7:00pm the night prior. You choose to go work for companies that require drug testing and it is perfectly legal to make this distinction.

3. It is rarely a company's concern about how you live your life outside of the confines of their business, however considering the fact that most illicit drugs' effects on people change over time, it's hard to discern whether there was any level of intoxication based upon a raw number of parts per million in a urine stream. That being said, a person that smokes a large amount of Marijuana at night after work, may be sober in the morning yet still present postive results in a urine analysis. In the same light, someone that smokes less often and has a joint prior to walking in the door may have a similar number (in terms of ppm) in their urine and be relatively intoxicated. This is rarely (basically never) true for breathalyzer tests related to alcohol as our bodies deaminate alcohol at a much higher rate. Companies that require these tests typically understand this premise. This is where "random" drug testing becomes a feasible way to deter use prior or during the work day as well as pre-screen drug users.

4. Statistically, people that use illicit drugs are far more likely to commit crimes in the work place than people who do not. Companies take measures to check educations, to check references, and to determine the skill sets of their employees. Why wouldn't they want to make the best effort to protect their assets in this manner as well?

Yesterday, I approached a roadblock that was taking place in my neighborhood; the officers asked for license and registration. I then saw a couple of people by the curb being arrested. It looked like they were under arrest for drunken driving. I wonder what they thought about this arrest. Did the government have the right to stop, search, and arrest them without probable cause? Well, there is a simple answer. Yes. Why? Because the government applied this roadblock uniformly to all citizens traveling down the road at this time. Had they singled people out and made only certain people go through the road block and arbitrarily stopped others, it would have been an unreasonable search. Carry this concept over to drug testing. As long as the testing agency doesn't make some arbitrary decision on whom should be tested and that the apply to all, they stay constitutional. If they don't test everyone on the same day, they must choose whom to test randomly. In addition to the above reasons, many drug tests are enacted for the protection of liability purposes. We all know that Constitutional rights are not absolute; so if a state or agency could show a COMPELLING state interest in the need for a drug test, they would probably be found to be constitutional as well. The burden would be up to the state in that case.

I agree with your rebuttal to Looms objection. However, be careful how your phrase your fourth piece of evidence. It is equally possible that people who commit crimes in the workplace are more likely to use drugs than those who do not. There is a switched causal mechanism here, and, logically speaking, I think it is unavoidable.

Your entire argument hinges on this point, but you forgot to back up your sources. Please show me somewhere statistically where people that use illicit drugs have been shown to be "far" more likely to commit crimes in the work place. You are obviously biased towards drug users, let's see if you can back up your assertion.

Personally, I don't work for a company that employs the use of drug tests, and I don't do drugs that are detectable by such tests. But a lot of my talented coworkers do, and without them, I know my job would be a lot harder and my company wouldn't be nearly as successful. IMO, Drug Tests are about as a poor "insurance" move as personality tests in determining the eventual effectiveness of an employee.