Drug testing

I have to disagree with Brian on this one. I don't mind being tested for pre-employment or randomly thereafter as long as it is a 100% policy. Nobody is exempted. I don't view it as an encroachment on my civil liberties, it is just a condition of employment with some employers. I had a contract with a large retailer to perform work in one of their large warehouses. It paid very very well but a condition was you had to submit to a polygraph before the job started and another one upon job completion. I was going to be working at night, completely unsupervised. I fully understood their position. The last place I worked was a factory that had a pre-employment drug testing policy but no random testing after that. A drug test was mandatory for any employee involved in an at-work accident which required medical attention or involved property damage. The pre-employment drug screen was mandated for the company to be a GAO vendor. The post-accident drug screen was required by their insurance carrier. If you don't want to be drug screened just don't apply to employers who require it. But for me, I want all my airline pilots, bus drivers etc randomly tested. As for the alcohol side of it, that should be treated the same on the job as any other controlled substance. If you've got alcohol in your bloodstream at work you have no business being there.

I don't think you can reasonably equate pre-employment drug testing with house to house searches. Workplace safety has to be a two-way street. If I can sue my employer if I am hurt by the actions of a fellow employee who was under the influence because the employer failed to provide a safe work environment, the employer should be allowed to take reasonable steps to provide that safe environment. For that purpose drug testing is reasonable. In Indiana, you cannot be arrested or prosecuted for failing a pre-employment drug screen. As far as the Patriot Act is concerned, most people who complain about it have never actually read it. They base their opinion on what someone else told them it says. As for the house to house searches in DC, I find it hard to believe that practice has escaped any media attention when a State Dept. contractor looking at passport files causes a nation-wide outcry. The Patriot Act hasn't loosened up the cops rules around here. They still need color video footage and 3 signed confessions to shut down a meth lab in my neck of the woods. Indiana used to have road-side sobriety checks during holiday weekends. They stopped them all together a couple of years ago because people complained it violated their rights. First page of the Indiana Drivers Manual states that "driving in Indiana is not a right, it is a privilege which can be revoked without due process at any time." Been that way since 1947. Long before the Patriot Act. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just saying I disagree with you.