<p>Does that question change any with alcohol? Or sleep deprivation? Or anything else?</p>
<p>If you concern is impairment, then fine, be concerned with impairment. But understand that there are plenty of legal ways to be impaired at work, and that a positive drug test does not show impairment.</p>
<p>What if Sally gets off at Friday at 11pm, smokes a joint, and then lays off? Come 5am Sunday she is not even slightly impaired, but a drug test would still go off. And that drug test would not tell anyone how much she smoked or when, nor would it tell you how impaired she was at any point in time.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that heavy pot users like that aren’t all that likely to be a surgeon in the first place and the people who do manage to pass the 12 years of post-secondary study needed to be performing a C-section have demonstrated a certain ability to not be totally impaired on the job by passing classes, internships, residency and boards, so I’d say the odds of them pulling off your hypothetical situation are pretty slim.</p>
<p>I would guess that the odds of pulling off any kind of high functioning activity while stoned are pretty low. However, I had a roommate in college (admittedly a long time ago when the strength of the available weed was less) that smoked a joint first thing every morning, when he returned from his classes, before dinner and topped it off a while before bed. In other words, he was almost always stoned. This was at MIT and he was in chemical engineering. Sad part, for me anyways, was that I didn’t indulge and was struggling to get by and my stoner roommate was pretty much a straight A student. He’s the only one I’ve ever known that could do that. So, it is possible (but not likely).</p>
<p>You still put yourself at risk these days. Most aerospace companies that I am familiar with require that their new employees allow random drug tests. They rarely do any testing. But, they do test when there is another item that raises the red flag. Since they can’t determine (as far as I know) when and how much, it gets treated as working impaired initially and then the employee has to prove they weren’t.</p>
<p>Your posts are so profoundly ignorant that they are actually pretty funny. Thanks for the laughs this morning. “Pot Bender” LOL are you consulting on “Reefer Madness” 2.0</p>
<p>The main issue is whether companies are screening for illegal activity or impairment during working hours. Urinalysis for cannabinoids checks for metabolites. They signal use, but in no way correlate to function. They can remain in the system for a LONG time. If a company were to do blood testing directly for THC it would correlate better to recent usage and thus impairment, like a directly measured blood alcohol content. </p>
<p>As far as I can tell, checking once you are an employee is for impairment. One of the main reasons given for checking is that the person being checked is performing a safety related function (although some of those functions are not the traditionally thought of safety functions like train engineer). They are checking for both legal and illegal drugs in a person’s system.</p>
<p>Pre-employment checks are a different matter. They are checking to see if the potential hire will be a “problem” employee. Missed work and medical bills can be quite costly. And if it is a safety related job, then the potential for an injury or accident leaves the company quite vulnerable for a lawsuit.</p>
<p>That’s the problem with cannabinoids, what they test for, metabolites, are in the system far longer than the impairment. If you went on vacation to a place where it was totally legal and consumed marijuana whether smoked or eaten, you could test positive after you returned even if you were substance free for a week or more. That’s a completely legal activity that has no impact whatsoever on the performance of any job, from brain surgeon to pilot to dish washer.</p>
<p>I don’t use drugs and only drink occasionally, but have had to wrestle with this issue as the President of the Board of Directors for an organization considering random drug testing. It is extremely nuanced, just like alcohol, except when it isn’t, just like alcohol.</p>
<p>Drug testing isn’t the only way to spot impairment in the workplace. Why open that can of worms unless you need to?</p>
<p>The company I worked for struggled with the same issue and decided not to do drug testing. One issue that kept coming up in the discussion was that many employees had been with the company for a while. Their employment contracts predated any kind of idea of drug testing. Therefore, could the company even ask for a random drug test?</p>
<p>That’s all I’m saying. Drug testing for cannabinoids, the way that it is commonly done, creates more problems than it solves unless your only intention is to screen for illegal activity. Even then, there can be problems., for instance, consumption where it is legal and testing where it isn’t. It’s a bag of snakes that doesn’t accomplish what it portends. </p>
<p>Do remember that some states have legalized marijuana for various reasons but not the federal government. If you do government work, do you now have a problem with a positive test even though the person was obviously not impaired at work? Just agreeing with you that testing can cause more issues than it solves.</p>
<p>That isn’t likely to be a problem. People can be fired for being an alcoholic even though that isn’t technically illegal and even if they aren’t showing up to work inebriated. I don’t see how other drugs would differ from that.</p>
<p>I am no longer even sure what is being argued at this point. Testing for marijuana (and/or other substances) is something that is legal in most (perhaps all?) states, whether by statue or as part of the employment contract. There is a gap between what the employers want or need to know and what the tests actually show, but so long as you can get fired, it is not going to be a good idea, whether it is fair or not.</p>
<p>I was selected for random testing for drug a few weeks ago. I was thinking ( random my butt), the higher up knew there is a high probably that the test will be negative for me so that is why they selected me, any other young people, the higher up would have some level of uncertainty of the results and they don’t want to ruin anybody’s career.</p>
<p>So it turns out the plant I’m working at doesn’t even drug test unless you’re involved in an accident. One of the engineers told me the last random testing they did was like 8 months ago. They realized they should stop dig testing employees since they kept loosing too many workers. It’s funny how that’s around the time it was legalized in Colorado and Washington too. I’m so happy that I can still occasionally smoke weed. I hate alcohol. This is my version. AND I rock at work. GO 2014</p>