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Old 03-06-2010, 04:04 AM
 
Location: Hawaii
1,689 posts, read 4,287,530 times
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All federal and state workers (a majority of them) must submit to these urine test;
If you pee dirty but have a prescription from a doctor, the result goes to the employer as negative for drug.

Here it comes. The state of Hawaii has legalized medical weed. So, as per the other drugs (pain pills, benzo's etc...) if you have a legal prescription it should be the same. Hawaii has it's own set of rules.

I don't know.

No one has to divulge any medications they are taking to their jobs (Privacy Act). Therefore the results from the urine test are confidential to you and the lab if it's a negative. If your dirty and have no prescription; you are busted.

There seems to be a lot of methadone floating around. Just know that stuff stays in your system about 30 days. But the bright side to that is usually they won't test methadone because the test for it is major expensive.

I am against drug testing.
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Old 03-06-2010, 10:23 AM
 
Location: Metairie, La.
1,156 posts, read 1,793,779 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tyvin View Post

There seems to be a lot of methadone floating around. Just know that stuff stays in your system about 30 days. But the bright side to that is usually they won't test methadone because the test for it is major expensive.

I am against drug testing.
Methadone, like most other opiate-based, narcotic pain medications (though Methadone is used as a step-down maintenance system for recovering heroin addicts) leaves the body's urine in less than one week. Regular drug tests screen for benzodiazepines, THC, cocaine, methamphetamine, and opiates. Larger panel drug screens include performance enhancing drugs and are more expensive.

The high schools in my state drug test for extracurricular activities, but the state school districts cannot afford the larger panel tests that screen for performance enhancers, so really they're testing for a bunch of drugs that would impede an athletes' performance. This is really kind of ludicrous although I'm sure high school athletes do indeed use street drugs like weed and pain killers, but not at the rate that they use steroids.

An athletic trainer who services several high schools in my area said he could tell that numerous athletes were on steroids. I asked him how he could tell and he said their growth rates and muscles were just unnatural. Also, steroid-ed out athletes have more injuries.
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Old 03-06-2010, 12:16 PM
 
Location: Hawaii
1,689 posts, read 4,287,530 times
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Methadone's half life is 19 to58 hrs.
Made by the Germans to replace morphine on the battlefield it's a nasty drug.
Since every one's metabolism/ liver condition is different as well as age, dosage and length of time used; it is best to use a 30 day marker for clearance of methadone from the system if you want "no doubt"
IMO.
SpringerLink Home - Main
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Old 03-06-2010, 04:24 PM
 
Location: Southern Willamette Valley, Oregon
11,148 posts, read 10,919,072 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DiogenesofJackson View Post
FutureBrennan asked what privacy was being invaded in an employment-related drug screen. Well the answer to that is obvious: one's urine (or hair).

What's in my body (or part of it) belongs to me. Just because I agree to work for somebody should not, in a perfect world, be cause for that person or entity to take something that is mine.

Also, it's just a humiliating process that assumes one is guilty of some nefarious behavior without any cause (in the case of a pre-employment drug test). Maybe a 100 years from now or longer people will view this practice as ludicrous as it actually is, especially considering that the tests really only test for marijuana and not the dangerous substances that impair people to the point of being dangerous to others.

As I stated in another post, drug testing is a means to lock certain people out of gainful employment. Of course, the propaganda is that it's for the public safety, but that's (to use another commentator's term) "bullbutter."

In the case of legal authorities taking one's urine as a condition of parole or probation, well that's a different story because the testee has had their day in court or there's been "due process."
I see your point to an extent, but somebody with your level of education must surely understand that employers need to protect their assets. You are not agreeing to work for them. They are allowing you the opportunity to work for them in exchange for monetery gain. It is intrusive, but do you suggest that potential employers work off the honor system?

The bottom line is that there is not a method to distinguish between the occasional user and the chronic junkie. I think drug testing at certain jobs like retail sales/cubicle drone/food service is silly. But for those who hold the lives of others in their hands (air traffic controller, pilot, locomotive engineer, ect.), it is neccessary. How would you feel if you just got strapped in on a plane and then through psychic abilities of some sort, realized that your pilot just got off a 24 hour coke bender?

Sadly, positive drug tests are the largest candidate disqualifyer at most job hirings. If you cannot pass a pre-employment test, after you know it is coming, you do not deserve the job. Random tests are the one's that I have faced most of my life, and the ones I detest the most. This is when I feel it becomes an invasion of privacy.

If you are/were a landlord, do you feel it is invasive to do a credit check and criminal history background check on a prospective tenant? To me, those are just as invasive, but sadly neccessary in todays society.

Pot should be legalized. It is a drain on our tax dollars to keep it illegal.
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Old 03-06-2010, 06:33 PM
 
Location: Metairie, La.
1,156 posts, read 1,793,779 times
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I see your points, yet a pre-employment drug screen is taking something that belongs to you as a precondition of employment. It assumes guilt without due process of law. I also undertand the argument that employers should have the right to employ whomever they want to and restrict those opportunities as well (many did so based simply on nationality and race in the past. Drug tests are a subtle way of doing that today). Consider the historical example of the Ford Motor Company's Sociology Department (ca 1920), which made routine visits to employees' homes to see if they "deserved" employment; or a raise if already employed. This was used by the Ford execs to bar employment to immigrants, hard drinkers, and people with "too many" children. Drug testing is just a modern way to invade one's privacy as an arbitrary but legal instrument through which insurance companies can dictate to employers whom they can and cannot employ (and employers are often in cahoots with this rationale).

I understand the "safety" argument used in support of drug testing, but safety is relative. Unless employees are continually tested for possible drug use, then no one can really tell if one is clean of, or on, say, cocaine.

Coke doesn't remain in the urine for very long (hair, much longer, but only well-financed industries use the hair follicle test, i.e. the government, casinos, etc.). School districts must ascertain the safety of its students and they conduct both pre-employment and random drug tests when employing bus drivers (per DOT rules). Yet just because the drivers take these tests during pre-hire does not mean that they do not use cocaine or other dangerous substances that exit the body's urine after two or three days of abstaining. To be certain, it would be better to put a monitor on the bus and to follow the employee around 24 hours a day--to be really certain. The drug screen here is just a "feel-good" measure by satisfying DOT regulations (and insurance company rules for liability coverage).

Also, the ease at which some one can beat a drug test makes them even more silly. Any potential employee could be substituting their urine sample with another's clean urine. Therefore a urine sample is not a reliable indicator of a "clean" employee.

The safety argument revolves around liability issues and the availability of insurance to protect the employers' interests. In many instances, employers conduct these drug screens only because the insurance companies require them for specific types of coverage. It's almost as if insurance companies control both employers and employees in this regard. And what product do insurance companies sell? Hope...security...safety. Does this really make employers and employees and the general public more safe? If they rely on drug tests to ascertain safety, this is a false sense of safety. Take the Exxon-Valdees oil spill that was incredibly costly in terms of environmental damage and loss of product for Exxon (not to mention the lawsuits filed in its wake). The ship's captain probably had clean drug screens, but this was not an indicator of whether or not he'd drink on the job and play slalom with the icebergs. Likewise, the pilot of a vessel in Lake Ponchatrain in the 70s decided to drink Vodka and take valium on a cold night, he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into a popular lakeside restaurant, killing several.

The safety argument can further be deconstructed based on the condition of the workplace in the past. Americans have always used drugs of some sort or another. Consider the 1950s before rampant drug testing of employees was a condition of employment, but numerous drugs that are now illegal were widely available, particularly speed, and other forms of "uppers," and were commonly used.

If employee/public safety depends on drug testing as many contend today, then by that logic the 1950s workplace would have been filled with extreme numbers of accidents, injuries, death, lost product and production, etc. But this was not the case, even in instances in which manufacturing employees admitted using "bennies" to get them through their factory shifts.

The safety argument fails on several counts. Just because a pilot or train operator is given a pre-employment drug screen does not mean that they do not use illicit substances (or even alcohol) on the job. A potential pilot or train operator who passes a pre-employment drug screen means they were clean at that time and at that time only. It is not an indicator of their future behavior (or even past behavior).

Further, drugs of many stripes have been available throughout this country's history, yet there is scant evidence that failure to drug test employees back then led to problems in the workplace that drug-screen proponents argue would happen without them today (but there is much evidence that alcohol abuse has indeed caused many problems in the workplace). Basically, drug screens are an arbitrary instrument used by insurance companies and employers to weed certain people out of gainful employment. They are trying to weed out weed smokers from employment because that is the only widely used illicit drug that remains in the body long enough to be detected by the tests. And the reliability/accuracy of these test, which are easily foiled, render this practice even more farcicle.

I've heard segments on NPR recently about plane crashes and pilot error in which the pilot was indeed suspected of using some drug or another. I wish I had firm examples for you, and I'll have to scan NPRs web site to find those. Think of this the next time you get on an airplane.
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Old 03-06-2010, 06:45 PM
 
Location: Metairie, La.
1,156 posts, read 1,793,779 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ditchlights View Post

If you are/were a landlord, do you feel it is invasive to do a credit check and criminal history background check on a prospective tenant? To me, those are just as invasive, but sadly neccessary in todays society.
This is often the rationale through which landlords deny people of adequate housing opportunities. It leaves them with little choices for housing, and they have to then go to some less than reputable landlord. This is why those with poor credit oftentimes live in sub-standard housing.

The landlord is taking a risk by renting out his/her property. One could have clean credit, then get into some kind of financial trouble and leave the landlord in the lurch. Again, it's not a 100% accurate indicator of future behavior. After passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which ruled that landlords cannot discriminate against whom they rent to, other tactics rose up to legally sanction discrimination. This is one of those tactics.

I realize there are scofflaws out there, but when you get into that kind of business, your are assuming some type of risk. If you don't want that risk, don't get into that kind of business.

Think of a world in which you have to have led a "perfect" life in order to be employed and find adequate housing. This type of world would be filled with people living in the streets. I prefer to house and employ these people so they won't bug me for change as I walk down a sidewalk, or squeegy my windshield when I'm stopped at a traffic signal.

Rent is one thing most people pay first...oftentimes before they eat. The car payment comes second, for most people. Like I said, I realize there are lowlifes and scofflaws out there. But if people have a job and a decent place to live, then it stands to reason that they'd work hard to keep that, wouldn't they? I would think most people would, but in this country so many folks live in continual fear of those who are the lowlifes as if every poor person or dude with bad credit is out to rob others blind. It's an irrational fear.
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Old 03-07-2010, 07:38 PM
 
Location: Hawaii
1,689 posts, read 4,287,530 times
Reputation: 3108
The Iditarod is on.
This will be the first year they test for drugs.
It appears no one can be "trusted."

Labs these days put tempurature strips around the bottom of the cup you are instructed to pee in.
If someone brings in another urine sample to pour in the cup while in the bathroom at the lab you better make sure the liquid you have stored is kept nice and warm somehow.
If the temp strip reads low you will be asked to wait 2 hours and pee again.
FYI
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Old 03-08-2010, 08:15 AM
 
Location: Metairie, La.
1,156 posts, read 1,793,779 times
Reputation: 775
Quote:
Originally Posted by tyvin View Post
The Iditarod is on.
This will be the first year they test for drugs.
It appears no one can be "trusted."

Labs these days put tempurature strips around the bottom of the cup you are instructed to pee in.
If someone brings in another urine sample to pour in the cup while in the bathroom at the lab you better make sure the liquid you have stored is kept nice and warm somehow.
If the temp strip reads low you will be asked to wait 2 hours and pee again.
FYI
FYI, online clean urine companies provide customers with a kit to keep substitute urine warm before the actual drug test. Google these.

Before these companies proliferated (hey, market forces at work. they saw a demand and filled it), it was common knowledge among frequent testees to put clean urine (usually the urine from a child) into a condom and then tape the condom under their arm or under their crotch. People have also reported using those hunters' heating packs to keep substitute urine warm before the drug test (I had a friend in the army who told me all of this, said it was "standard procedure").

The only drug test that is not as easily beatable is the hair follicle test, which is why the authorities and casinos use these tests. Probation officers in most states contract with testing companies who do hair follicle tests. Of course, the one on probation is billed for this service, in most instances. But at least in this instance, the post-conviction drug test, there has been due process for the testee. They've had their day in court.

I for one do not use drugs anymore (there was a time in my life when I was young I routinely smoked weed and did some mushrooms and LSD, but that was years ago). I kind of outgrew it. Ironically, I didn't have to take drug tests back then. After college and by changing jobs frequently in the 90s (hey, the economy was rockin), I had to submit to these. I found the experience awful and humiliating, and the lab techs are generally polite, but I got the sense that they thought I was guilty (maybe I'm paranoid).

Once I had a lab call me because they found opiates in my system, and I had taken the test a few days after recovering from the flu. I had been taking some strong cough syrup the doctor prescribed. They made me retest despite my appeals to the lab that I indeed had a legitimate prescription (I wanted to avoid the retest because the lab was way out of my way and rather inconvenient like going to the DMV is). I retested after about 5 days from the initial test, and this one came out clean. Again, total humiliation and the lab workers there were not so polite when I returned.
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Old 03-08-2010, 09:27 PM
 
48,505 posts, read 96,551,406 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nanannie View Post
"Extremely few people die from alcohol"


alcohol deaths per year
drinking and driving causes over 25,ooo deaths a year. overall 100,000 deaths occur each year due to the effects of alcohol.Correction: According to the NHTSA web site (nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/RNotes/2006/810686.pdf), there were 43,443 alcohol related traffic fatalities in 2005 in the USA. As a comparison, AIDS claimed 18,000 lives in 2003.
How can alcohol be blamed for 100,000 deaths each year?

5% of all deaths from diseases of the circulatory system are attributed to alcohol.
15% of all deaths from diseases of the respiratory system are attributed to alcohol.
30% of all deaths from accidents caused by fire and flames are attributed to alcohol.
30% of all accidental drownings are attributed to alcohol.
30% of all suicides are attributed to alcohol.
40% of all deaths due to accidental falls are attributed to alcohol.
45% of all deaths in automobile accidents are attributed to alcohol.
60% of all homicides are attributed to alcohol.

(Sources: NIDA Report, the Scientific American and Addiction Research Foundation of Ontario.) Also see Alcohol Consumption and Mortality, Alcohol poisoning deaths, CDC report,
Actaully that is like saying mental illnesss does not kill;its the fallor other suicide cause that does. Alcohol causes so mnay deaths we really can't put a accuarte estimate. just the nuber of epople who are drunk when thewy killcsomeone and the degree that it plays is unkonown. Just like all drugs it paly a real part i so many tragedies in life.That includes marijuana.
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Old 03-12-2010, 05:40 PM
 
Location: Land of Free Johnson-Weld-2016
6,470 posts, read 16,332,882 times
Reputation: 6518
Quote:
Originally Posted by ditchlights View Post
I agree with most of this except one part. What does the pot I smoked three weeks ago at a party have to do with my job performance today? Heavy drugs are out of urine within 72 hours, yet the occasional pot smoker lives in fear of losing their job a month after they partake in a few hits. I'm not talking about a chronic user, just the occasional weekend warrior. It is nice to be able to fire one up once or twice a month without having to live in fear of the unemployment line.
If you smoked pot 3 weeks ago at a party, it probably won't show up on your drug test. I think those tests are to get people who smoked pot every DAY for the past 3 weeks. I do agree with you, though. Personally, the entire "War on Drugs" is an evil joke. I don't think people should use drugs, but I also don't care to put them in jail.

I once went on a date with a really cute guy who smoked LOTS of pot. He actually lit up while we were walking down the street. I don't smoke pot, but I also don't care if others choose to do so. I enjoy pot-smokers. Anyway, because of my workplace, I had to ask him to stop smoking, because my job had random drug testing. :goodgrief:

It's retarded. As you can see from my long post... I am an awesome employee . Seriously I am a great employee and I'm good at my job and enjoy it. Why should I and others like me have to even worry about losing a job because of something as innocuous (compared to ALCOHOL, CIGARETTES and yes even CAFFEINE) as marijuana...? Just legalize it.
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