Thom Hartmann: Time to End ALL Drug Testing

[thomhartmann]

In the decades since Nixon declared a War on Drugs - drug testing has become a multi-billion-dollar-a-year business. Supporters of drug testing say it helps employers weed out bad workers - but in reality it's just a big waste of time.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[House of Roberts]

1. I wonder how many jobs I wouldn't have gotten,

without drug testing to narrow the candidates? I've never feared a drug test, because I don't abuse them.

Normally I agree with Thom, but I don't want to work with some of the meth-heads and psychos I've worked with in shops that don't test.

[MNBrewer]

7. do you equate use with "abuse"?

[JoeyT]

9. They don't catch meth heads.

They mostly catch people that smoked weed two or three days ago. Meth and coke don't stick around in your system for long.

I regularly work with meth heads and coke heads in an industry where you get a piss test at the start of every job and jobs normally last two weeks to a month. While those idiots are dangerous, in terms of danger they pale in comparison to the people that stay drunk from can to can't.

It's designed to make the insurance company happy and deny workman's comp claims and not much else.

[freebrew]

2. More than a waste of time...

it's a waste of talent and productivity.

As a mfg worker most of my life, the things I've seen would boggle HR's collective mind.

Example: 25 welders working on a shift, all but 3 were 'pot' smokers. Consistently, the best welders NEVER included those 3.

I was at a company dinner one night. 8 of us discussing the subject, 1 had never smoked. This 1 was thought of as person to be avoided the most, even by people that didn't know the above fact. Also, had one of the worst productivity records of any other.

While I realize this means squat to most people, my own personal experience with others that smoke tells me flat that the smoke doesn't affect one's performance one iota. And I mean even while on the job.

How long have we let tobacco smokers stink us all up to high heaven just because they can.
Cannabis smoke doesn't embed in the walls so doesn't stink up the room, long term. So far, it doesn't cause cancer(and not from lack of trying to prove it). As for the effects, I regard it no more mind altering than a cigarette, you know, the things cops are smoking ALL the time.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. !!!

[2pooped2pop]

4. it only finds the pot users

coz it stays in the system so long. In Indiana it's still a dui even if you smoked 30 days ago.

[shedevil69taz]

5. not true

We routinely do surprise 100 percent tests in the military and every time we do we get someone who has taken something they are not supposed to. I've seen people get kicked out for a wide variety of substances including prescription drugs that either the prescription had expired or it was never prescribed to them.

[shedevil69taz]

6. I'm sorry

I firmly believe there are some jobs that not only should keep drugs testing employees but expand on their testing programs. Could be my own experiences, but when you see a high ranking Army officer doctor getting hauled away in handcuffs because he popped hot for several mind altering substances and you think about the times you had been treated by same doc...yeah I just wonder now how many in similar positions use, never get caught and subsequently how many lives are altered by the ones that slip through the cracks.

[longship]

8. Statistically, the false positives pretty much must overwhelm the false negatives.

Just by the numbers alone.

Drug testing cannot achieve what it is meant to achieve, just by the statistics alone.