[geeks] This bogles my mind

[David Cantrell]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2001 at 06:56:21PM -0500, ward at zilla.nu wrote:

> I've noticed that very few of the folks who oppose drug tests don't do
> drugs, or at least haven't done drugs.  I'm very interested in personal
> privacy and civil liberties, but I really don't see how a drug test
> invades these rights.

How about the fact that prescription drugs can be detected with those tests?
Your employer has no right to know about such things if they have no bearing
on your ability to do your job.  Then there's the issue that if you smoke a
joint on Friday evening after work it ain't going to affect your ability to
do your job come Monday morning.  Then there's the danger of false positives
(often caused by those prescription drugs which your employer has no right
to know about, but also by things like contamination of the test, second-
hand smoke, some food additives etc).

What I do out of work is of no concern to the company if it *stays* out of
work.

I find it quite absurd that a company can get away with requiring that
employees are not smokers.  Sure, forbid smoking on company premises, make
sure they make up the time they take for their ciggie breaks, but to deny
someone employment solely because they smoke outside of working hours is
just as absurd as denying someone employment just because they have a drink
with their evening meal.

>                       Doesn't a background check invade ones privacy
> much more?  Yet nobody ever seems to oppose background tests.

Depends what you mean by a background check.  Sometimes these are necessary
and justified (for example, if you would be working on classified projects,
or with particularly vulnerable members of society) but in general - yes,
they are an unacceptable invasion of privacy, just as unacceptable as drug
tests.

-- 
David Cantrell | david at cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

             If a job's worth doing, it's worth dieing for