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My point precisely. Please understand that I'm in agreement with you, but it's precisely the same logic at work in both cases. And no, I don't think that we should just accept this crap; otherwise it's only going to get worse.

In my opinion, it goes even deeper than an employer not wanting its employes to make "bad" personal choices. It goes to the heart of the relationship between employer & employee. We're fast moving back toward what things were like in the 19th century, before unions & worker protections & the like - when the power of employer over employee was absolute. Those who declare the War on Drugs a "failure" are missing the point. It HAS failed in that we're never going to rid our society of illegal drugs or addiction. Even the most ardent drug warrior would concede this. But consider instead that the goals of the War on Drugs are to diminish our expectations of liberty & privacy, to enhance police power & prerogatives, & to reassert the authority of employer over employee, & from this angle it has been a smashing success.

Drug testing is a bit iffy here... the presence of some drugs can be a significant clue towards being an addict, and having a heroin addict working with money for example is a bad decision. If he can't get his fix on his pay, there's a decent chance he'll snatch some cash from you (the employer) to get that fix.

It's easy enough to set up a fake profile.

As for FB accounts & passwords in general, by all means, let's agitate for a law to ban employers from doing this.

But what is a drug test if not a search of one's body? How is that less invasive than being forced to reveal one's FB password? Or submit to a credit check? Absolutely it's more degrading. In virtually every drug-testing regime, a refusal draws the same consequences as a positive test - no right of privacy, no protection from self-incrimination, no presumption of innocence.

I understand the imperative in certain jobs to ensure a sober & competent work force - things like airline pilots, nuclear reactor operators, or in other situations where lives are at stake, or even professional athletes in the case of performance-enhancing drugs. In these cases, if a person doesn't want to deal with this, then try to pursue other lines of work.

But drug testing has much deeper role in our society. It's got to the point where it's near impossible to gain entry into any "legitimate" or "on the books" job without being forced to surrender one's fundamental rights. Here, in essence, the drug test is more about authority than it is about drugs per se. After all, there's only one "drug" that it's effective in screening, which happens to be the least harmful of all illegal drugs. Any half-witted addict can "beat" a drug test - it isn't hard. The drug test now is purely an assertion of the company's absolute authority over its employees, whether on the job or not. Effectively it's a statement that "you will have no secrets from us, you have no rights before us". It's a ritual of submission required of persons of low social standing, the practice now making the transition from employee/employer relations to the relations between people & the government.

But the larger point is that once we've surrendered our liberty, the precedent is set for further erosion of liberty. This may sound like a "slippery slope" or "parade of horribles", but in this case it's hard to argue that it isn't so.

Now that the drug test has become an accepted part of life, so too have such things as police checkpoints, stop & frisk policies, all in the name of ridding our society of illegal drugs. Our Supreme Court is dangerously on the verge of creating an outright "drug exception" to 4th amendment rights.

Now that the drug test has become an accepted part of life, the rationale now is that if private employers can do this without restriction, why can't the government? Several Republican-controllled state legislatures have passed legislation requiring a drug test in order to qualify for public assistance or unemployment compensation. As always when liberty is taken away, the action is first targeted at a powerless, despised group - in this case, poor people. As always, it is couched in hoary sentiments like "personal improvement" or "uplift" or "job training", but in effect it's another "crack of the whip" by the state on its most powerless subjects. But if the state can require the surrender of fundamental rights in this case, naturally this logic can apply to other services, like a driver's license, or Medicaid eligibility, or to other fundamental rights for that matter. Colleges & universities could thus require the surrender of one's protection against warrantless searches as a condition of living in university housing.

First it was in the name of fighting drugs. Then it was in the name of fighting terrorism. Now it's all about fighting illegal immigration. But the net effect is always the same - we've lost more of out liberty, never to gain it back.

Yes, drug tests suck. But, they are a necessary evil as far as an employer is concerned. If I started a business, you can bet yer ass every single employee would be taking drug tests 2-4 times a year, at random times. Will I fire them if they smoke pot? No. Will I fire them if meth, opiates, that sort of thing shows up? Hell yes. Out the door, no questions asked, no exceptions. It's called protecting your business. If you don't want to take a drug test you're under no obligation to take it, but the employer is not under any obligation to hire you anyway. Even if they didn't care, their insurance companies would. That's why if you work with money (even store cashiers) most jobs will require a basic background check. If they hire someone with a criminal history, their insurance will either cease their coverage or jack the rates up.


Road checks are legal dude, always have been. Arguing against them is a waste of time. Your car won't be searched unless your registration/license plate/inspection (if your state inspects vehicles) is out of date or reported as stolen. If you don't want to be frisked for no reason, you're within your rights to decline it and if they search you anyway, it's an illegal search and no charges can be brought against you.

Sudafed will show up as meth on a regular urine drug test. It would take a more expensive test to differentiate between the two. People on probation aren't allowed to take Sudafed here, except with a prescription and you have to bring your prescription bottles in. So, if a person who isn't on probation says they took Sudafed and they test positive for meth, how are you going to decide what to do? Are you going to go with your gut? If so, why not do that in the first place?

Opiates and opiods include things like oxycontin and heroin, however a 5mg Lortab will show up positive in that same catagory. If I have a headache and take one of my mothers Lortabs for it then take a drug test the next day, they wouldn't be able to tell if I had just taken a low dose Lortab, as I said I did, or if I had shot up heroin or snorted up some OC's.

If a kid is on ADHD meds, he will test positive for amphetamine. How do you know if he's just been taking his one low dose time release pill in the morning that his mother gives him, or if he's buying adderall at school and chopping them up and snorting them?

Also, pot is extremely easy to pass a drug test for, you only have to know a few hours before the test.

As well as eating large quantities of poppy seeds

I think I read somewhere that poppy seeds won't do it. They have to be from the opium poppy to show that, and that's not the kind thats used in baking.

They used to sell Donagel PG over the counter here for the runs, and it had an opiate in it. It would cause a positive result, but it wouldn't normally get you high. People had to do an extraction if they wanted to get the drug out of it.

I would always say I am on medication just in case I test positive on the test. I did past it when I had to take it. I also read that poppy seeds will make you test positive on the drug test. Just don't have poppy seeds that day.

I don't like drug tests and would likely refuse them if I was expected to take one, definitely if they wanted to watch. I just wouldn't be able to go then. If it means I don't get the job I'm ok with that. I don't think the kinds of crummy low paying jobs I would qualify for would even bother doing those but I can't say for sure.

Depending on the circumstances in which you get drug tested, just saying you are on meds won't work. You have to bring in yor prescriptions. When my oldest was on probation for week, he would get drug tested every month. One time, all the kids were sick with a virus, including him. I had given him and his sister some of her cough medicine that she had from a few months ago. He had had it before so I knew he could take it. It had hydrocodone in it. I had to explain that to his probation officer, and the one he had at that time was an ass, so he made me go into the judges office and explain it to him. I told him that I was the boys mother (he was 17) and he had had that medicine many times, in fact Miss J the nurse practitioner had given me lots of samples of it to use over the years, and that I had kept what was left of his sisters medicine when she was done, and we used it this time when they were sick. They can all take hydrocodone except my younger son who is allergic. The judge had no problem with that.

If you are being drug tested in a criminal case, then you will have to bring your meds to prove it. Some places drug test you for all court cases (probation) even if it had nothing to do with drugs. I was on probation for driving without a license (long story but I wasn't at fault when I lost my license to begin with, it was a paperwork problem) and when my husband was laid off I couldn't pay my monthly fine. So my probation girl asked the judge to suspend the probation for six months so I wouldn't have to pay. He did but I had to go in every month and take a drug test. I've never had any legal problems involving drugs. I'm also close to 50 and a housewife. Not the type of person who they suspect of being a dopehead. I didn't find out until my very last drug test that I was being charged $35 for each of them. I told her if I had known that I would have refused them, because that's ridiculous. She agreed but said she can't do anything about it.

What pisses me off is that psych wards will drug test you without getting your permission for it when you are admitted. I was admitted once for depression and as part of my admissions labs they got urine. I thought it was standard testing for UTI and pregnancy so I didn't ask. They treated me like I was on drugs because I had taken a sleeping pill that my mother gave me two nights before and I didn't mention it to the nurse who had asked me what meds I was taking and was I doing illegal drugs. That's crazy. I told them after they asked and said benzos were in my urine. They said I witheld information and I said I didn't think that mattered because it wasn't my related to my primary complaint and had nothing to do with anything. Assholes they are.

When I was 14 and in a mental hospital they once did a drug test on me and it came back positive for marijuana. I had never even done marijuana at the time.

It can stay in your bloodstream for some time depending on how much you'd taken previously.

Me? I had never even done it at all at that age. I don't think I had even sat around people smoking it and breathed in second hand smoke at that age.

Must have been a problem with their test then, very strange.