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Employers Struggle To Find Workers Who Can Pass A Drug Test
HughPickens.com writes: Jackie Calmes writes in the NYT that all over the country, employers say they see a disturbing downside of tighter labor markets as they try to rebuild from the worst recession since the Depression: the struggle to find workers who can pass a pre-employment drug test. The 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 suggests 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. Data on the scope of the problem is sketchy because figures on job applicants who test positive for drugs miss the many people who simply skip tests they cannot pass. But Quest Diagnostics, which has compiled employer-testing data since 1988, documented a 10% increase in one year in the percentage of American workers who tested positive for illicit drugs -- up to 4.7 percent in 2014 from 4.3 percent in 2013.
With the software industry already plagued by a shortage of skilled workers, especially female programmers, some software companies think now would be the wrong time to institute drug testing for new employees, a move that would further limit the available talent pool. "The acceptability of at least marijuana has shifted dramatically over the last 20 years," says Carl Erickson. "If the standard limits those that have used marijuana in the last week, you're surely going to be limiting your pool of applicants." Erickson's decision not to drug test stems from a low risk of workplace injury for his workers combined with an unwillingness to pry into the personal lives of his employees. "My perspective on this is if they want to share their recreational habits with me, that's their prerogative, but I'm sure as hell not going to put them in a position to have to do it."
With the software industry already plagued by a shortage of skilled workers, especially female programmers, some software companies think now would be the wrong time to institute drug testing for new employees, a move that would further limit the available talent pool. "The acceptability of at least marijuana has shifted dramatically over the last 20 years," says Carl Erickson. "If the standard limits those that have used marijuana in the last week, you're surely going to be limiting your pool of applicants." Erickson's decision not to drug test stems from a low risk of workplace injury for his workers combined with an unwillingness to pry into the personal lives of his employees. "My perspective on this is if they want to share their recreational habits with me, that's their prerogative, but I'm sure as hell not going to put them in a position to have to do it."
There is no shortage of programmers.
I would argue that there is a shortage of programmers, especially really skilled ones. But admittedly, in this context, that's not the issue.
Ezekiel 23:20
I was actually all for legalizing drugs. However, I don't use them, and it wasn't something that I considered to be an urgent issue at all. I figgered there were slightly more important things, like wars and economic meltdowns (this was before the bursting bubbles).
The thing is, many people have been put in prison and had their lives ruined because of misguided drug policy. For them it is a quite urgent and important issue. I assume you think that wars and economic meltdowns are important because of the effects they have on people's lives. Well, drug prohibition also has an effect on people's lives, has gotten us the highest incarceration rate in the developed world and ushered in such violations as "civil forfeiture" and no-knock warrants. So yeah, it's kind of an important and serious issue.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
This is one of the things that is being skipped over in the rush to legalize pot
This isn't being skipped over at all. Here in Colorado there are a huge number of researchers and startups working on tests. The reason why there's just now active research into tests is that federal law effectively prohibited conducting any research prior to legalization, especially if human subjects were involved.
There's even THC metabolite detection research going on at federal labs here, though the whole process needs to be laundered through university and companies to keep the feds happy.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
When people hear "drugs in the workplace" they mean drugs that can cause accidents, including alcohol -- but not coffee, It's a drug, but improves performance.
The problem here is they say "drugs" and mean "marijuana". If you get high once a month on a Friday night you won't be impaired at work but you won't pass a drug test. Snort coke or smoke crack first thing Friday morning and you'll be impaired, but any test given after the following Monday you'll pass.
Get drunk at work Monday morning and there will be no trace by Tuesday.
Sadly, I saw a few people become cocaine addicts because of drug testing. Their employers started testing, so they switched from pot to crack, They're all now homeless, but finctioned in society fine with pot.
And that's the real tragedy here. I have ADHD and take Vyvanse (long-acting adderall, AKA amphetamine salts) daily. It wears off after about 8-10 hours, but if taken too late in the day, it keeps me up all night. Sativa or hybrid cannabis is the only drug I have found with similar effects that doesn't keep me up all night. I would never take it while working but it helps tremendously in reducing anxiety and impulses between 5PM and bedtime.
Both of these drugs are serious drugs. Both drugs strong positive effects for people with certain mental health conditions. Both drugs have potential side effects, some of them negative, some positive, some serious, and others mild. Only a quirk of history based in racism has made one illegal and the other one a prescription medication.
Research into psychedelic substances was the first and most promising avenue that mental health pharmacology investigated. Drugs like THC, LSD, MDMA, etc showed great results in helping severely mentally ill people to function in society. All the research was stopped, not because they were medical dead ends, but because the political landscape in the USA shifted. Most doctors aren't even taught this history in medical school. It is as if the research never happened. Of the many times we have failed the mentally ill in the US in the last 100 years, the abandonment of research into these types of drugs is the most disappointing to me personally.