Court Protects Casual Drug Use

Will workplace safety be trumped by human-rights law?

What is wrong with this question as published in the National Post?

Oh you don't know? Well allow me to explain. By asking this question we have to agree on a set of underlying assumptions. You have to believe, in spite of all the evidence, that drug testing improves the safety of the workplace. You also have to believe that handing over your pee to the pee police is not an invasion of privacy.

This headline is all wrong and so is the question. It should read Court Protects the Privacy of Workers. Or how about Will the misguided concerns of overzealous employers trump common sense? Or Court Protects Workers from the Pee Police.

Listen up, you pee-policing morons. Drug testing is ineffective. It doesn't test for impairment and a failed drug test means absolutely nothing. There is an unacceptably high rate of false positives. You can lose your job based on a flawed drug test. If you think that false positives are not a problem, think again. Workers should be judged by their job performance. If you can't identify drug users without subjecting their pee to analysis, how much of a problem can drug use be?

From personal experience I can tell you that fatigue and your mental state are the biggest on-the-job impairments. Staying up all night with a cranky baby or missing my morning coffee affect my job performance. But there is no drug test for that. At least, not yet. Pretty soon if my caffeine levels go too low I will be considered impaired.

I wish that the National Post would quit re-printing this ill-thought out reefer madness and call it news.