College and University Blog
Drug Testing - Does It Deter Drug Use?
There is a chance that when you graduate and go out into the working world, you will be required to take a drug test. Testing employees or job candidates for drug use is perfectly legal. It is illegal to fire an employee or reject an applicant for discriminatory reasons, like race, age, or gender, but singling someone out because of drug use is not a discriminatory act.
The main reason for the increase in drug testing is one of basic economics. Drug use and abuse is a problem too expensive to ignore. The government estimates that companies lose $82 billion in productivity each year because of substance abuse. More than three-quarters of the estimated 15 million drug users in the United States have jobs. A typical “recreational” drug user in today’s workforce is 2.2 times more likely to request time off; 2.5 times more likely to have absences of eight days or more; three times more likely to be late for work; 3.6 times more likely to be injured or to cause injury; five times more likely to be involved in an accident off the job, thus affecting attendance and performance; five times more likely to file a worker’s compensation claim; seven times more likely to have wage garnishments; and are one-third less productive.
According to Quest Diagnostics, the largest drug testing laboratory, almost 6% of all employees randomly tested and 4% of job applicants fail drug tests. They say that technology is so refined that false positives almost never happen. Those that test positive for drugs tend to work in restaurants, bars, construction, food preparation, or transportation. Of course, they can be found in all industries. It