This paper will be concerned with the issue of drug testing in the workplace. In 1986, President Reagan began encouraging federal employers to test their employees for drug use. In particular, Reagan wanted such tests to be made on employees in jobs involving sensitive information or public safety. Today, the federal government continues to maintain its policy of requiring drug testing "for its employees and the employees of federal contractors." In addition, many companies in the private sector have followed the lead of the federal government and have also begun to test their employees for drug use. The majority of the companies who conduct routine drug tests do so at! the pre-employment level. In this way, an effort is being made to screen and reject drug users before they are employed in the first place. Statistics show that "more than half of all midsize and large companies in the U.S. now test the urine of job applicants for illegal drugs and reject those who come up positive." Despite the widespread acceptance of drug testing in the workplace, the issue continues to be controversial. Many Americans feel that random drug testing is an invasion of privacy. Furthermore, many people question the validity of drug testing for determining the suitability of a particular applicant for a job.
Those who argue in favor of employee drug testing claim that drug use has a detrimental impact on worker productivity. In this regard, studies have shown that employees who use drugs tend to have more accidents, injuries and absences than employees who do not use drugs. In addition, studies have shown that drug-using employees tend to be fired from their jobs more frequently than drug-free employees. There is little doubt that these factors have a detrimental effect on productivity. When the productivity of individual employees suffers, the business as a whole suffers. on a larger scale, it can be seen that decreased productivity...