• LAVA Moderator: Mysterier

Drug Testing

Studyone

Greenlighter
Joined
Dec 18, 2017
Messages
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I have an A.A. In General Studies and am finishing up a B.A. in Liberal Studies. I want to work in an office and not get drug tested randomly, I would not care if they wanted me to take a drug test when I originally get hired but not randomly while I work there. Is this reality or do almost all good paying jobs do random drug tests?
 
It's become commonplace for employers in the U.S. to require pre-employment drug screening. I believe random testing would be required more often in fields where the health and safety of others is of importance. I'm going to move this to Life Advice where hopefully more people can share their experience.


edit- Can you move to Education & Careers? I'm afraid that I put this in the wrong forum.
 
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you in the usa? all good paying jobs have something in the fine print saying they can do random drug tests. few do.

my last job, which was not good, actually did random drug tests. my manager had a bottle of synthetic urine in his glove box in case anyone on his team got flagged. i worked there for almost a year and was never flagged. also employers do not have to fire you if you fail. drug testing is hitting a major hurtle in the united states because of marijuana. employers are testing employees and then saying, "fuck, well now what. we can't fire that person or all these people."
 
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I work in the corporate world. So I have some exposure to this topic. I’ve even done some work on analyzing this, for my company. Performance/absenteeism/attrition... ultimately the profit margins, and the impact to these by testing vs not testing.

I wasn’t sure this discussion was allowed or not, but since a mod moved it instead of closing it, I guess we’re good :)

Assuming you’re in the US, OP

As far as specific laws go, I believe they vary by state, and some states might have small differences. I’ll tell you what I know, based on my local knowledge of Texas. But I think the US, in general, is pretty consistent.

Almost all companies will do a pre-employment drug test. The percentage of companies that do test had increased, and will likely continue to increase. Even the historically “safe” industries such as food service are not so “safe” anymore when it comes to drug testing. That’s just the world we live in. And with the media obsession with opiates, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Here’s the deal though. Drug testing is expensive. Companies will pay it during the recruiting process, but they aren’t as willing to pay it once you’re hired.

UNLESS - they have a reason to. If they suspect you’re coming to work under the influence, they can. If they hear rumors, they can. If you get injured at work, they almost certainly will. If you file a workman’s comp claim, you can bet your sweet ass they’ll test you.

It’s perfeclty legal for them to do so. A quick google search will give you thousands of results that support that.

But the moral of the story is, unless you give them a reason to, they probably won’t.

Caveat - this is based on my exposure to the white collar world. It’s my understanding, but not based on personal experience or expertise, that many industries and/or employers in BLUE collar work will do random testing more regularly. Specifically those where safety is a concern. Transportation, construction, machine operators, etc... based on your post, OP, you’ll likely be in the white collar world, where this wouldn’t apply.

I don’t want to guarantee you that you will NEVER get randomly tested, but from my personal experience, I think you’ll be fine.
 
If they suspect you’re coming to work under the influence, they can. If they hear rumors, they can. If you get injured at work, they almost certainly will. If you file a workman’s comp claim, you can bet your sweet ass they’ll test you.
Yeah, if you get injured on the job and have to go to the hospital, the Occupational Health section of the hospital will drug test you. I think it may be required by law, but I don't know that. I got fired that way once. Got hurt, went to the hospital, they drop you and inform the employer of the result. I tested positive for cannabis. I was not high at the time of the incident. That sucked.
 
If you are stressing about your drug test, eat lots of clean food, lots of asparagus, and a big thing that helps is to session it in a sauna every day for a half hour to an hour. excersize regularly until a few days before the test. Generally keep it easy and hydrate.
 
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In my experience, there are plenty of professional/white collar jobs that do not drug test. I work as a computer programmer and there was never the slightest mention of a drug test either pre-employment or during employment. I actually came clean to my boss about being addicted to opiates years ago because I had taken ibogaine to get off them and in my confusion I wrote him an absolutely incriminating and garbled email... he was quite concerned so I told him all about it. He told me it would be pointless to drug test because it just matters whether you do a good job or not. If I was sucking at my job they might fire me but I excelled at my job through it all and if they had a drug testing policy they would have lost their best employee.

My guess is that with weed becoming more and more legal, in the relatively near future drug testing for weed at least will become much less common. And weed is the one that's hard to pass, most other drugs clear your system quickly.
 
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