Yes you can, a simple cognitive performance test will determine whether or not someone is impaired by a drug. No need for guilty until proven innocent.
drug tests at work
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Yes you can, a simple cognitive performance test will determine whether or not someone is impaired by a drug. No need for guilty until proven innocent.
Expnsive and complicated. This is not a court of law. So that statement is totally pointless. It is quite clear in contracts. Abide by them or find another job.
I can understand that in your job
we had a scenatio where a customer wanted us all to be security cleared, part of this was a credit check, we objected and HR backed us
This is quite common. We're credit checked annually and CRB checked every 24 months, but both are common to our industry.
Damn, you really don't see what's wrong with that policy. Wow.
Do they keep a list of what video games you're allowed to play when you're not at work? Just in case some games might have some effect on your mind that you cannot guarantee won't have any effect at all on your mind at work.
Are there restrictions and requirements regarding diet and exercise while not at work? If not, why not? Diet and exercise certainly affects a person and that definitely will affect them at work (unlike many positive drug test results).
It's worse than that. It's guilty without the option of being allowed to even attempt to prove your innocence.
That policy as stated means that your employer will sack people for eating, especially starchy food such as rice.
Well, that's nice.
No, I am not joking. Humans naturally produce alcohol internally as a side effect of digesting food. It can result in a non-zero value on a drugs test.
Some of the drugs policies stated in this thread are a worrying combination of control freakery and ignorance. It would be more reasonable for an employer to sack people for spending less than 8 hours in bed on any day, including when they are on holiday. Fatigue has a far greater effect on a person than trace amounts of drugs that are not psychoactive in that form.
Inexpensive and simple actually. It can be done on a computer and is carried out in a number of fields of employment where high mental performance is required.
The statement is not pointless, it highlights the unprofessionalism and unethicalness of said contract, since it has no effect on job performance it is the same as firing someone for watching the x-factor in their own private time. Another problem of such a mindset is that you are losing money by firing competent employees based on inaccurate assumptions. Just because something is in a contract doesn't make it just or legal, as the unfair contract terms act 1977 shows.
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A company I have also worked at used this policy. They told me this in advance before going for the interview & in the contract. This was at a firm which makes Printers/Ink Cartridges & other things.
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Our work policy has random drug tests which suits me fine. I think it's perfectly acceptable. Then again they tell you before you join, so if you get caught you only have yourself to blame. I think it's fantastic and makes the workplace feel that little bit safer.
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The amount of alcohol produced by ingested foods is negligible and any drug test worth it's salt would easily dismiss such low values anyway, so I don't understand your shock/horror at this.
I agree about fatigue, but that's why there managers, to ensure their staff are performing properly, and KPIs etc.. to make sure targets are being hit. One would hope that there would be a pro-active approach to lack of performance.
It requires base tests and other things.
It is in your contract. Illegal drugs are illegal and even legal drugs are tested for. don't like it find another job. it really is that simple. There is absolutely nothing wrong with.
Not even police use such tests. Just because you are over drink drive limit does not mean you will be affected or affected in the same way as others. I bet you have never complained about drink drive limit though.
It's a violation of privacy which makes it an unfair contract, firing someone for what they do in their person time when it doesn't affect their work performance is completely against anyone's best interest.
Police perform sobriety tests on those suspected of being under the influence of drugs. The drink drive limit is incomparable to random drugs testing because the testing isn't random and the limit represents an intoxicating amount of the substance. Alcohol is very different pharmacologically to most other drugs.
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Your contract should state that before you sign, so it's not an infringement if you're aware you're signing it.
At my place of work they also do full ATF searches depending on the department where you work. Some people hate that, some people think it's perfectly normal - however it's stated in the contract that you will be searched.
At my place of work they also do full ATF searches depending on the department where you work. Some people hate that, some people think it's perfectly normal - however it's stated in the contract that you will be searched.
How is it an infringement, you know full well before you sign contract.
Companies have a duty of care to employees, customers and public.
Drugs of all types can and do affect your ability and you can not say: oh I took x-drug, x-hours/days ago I'll be fine. you have no idea.
Since when do UK cops use sobriety tests, there was a thing recently about possibly brining it in.
Alcohol test simply shows it is in your system and what quantity, not how it affects the individual.
Because there is no choice but to sign the contract unless you want to starve, in the real world you cannot simply turn down work because you disagree with the contract, knowledge is not consent.
Of course you do, it's called science, empirical data published in peer reviewed journals.
I'm not aware that they do however whether the UK force does it or not is irrelevant.
Using published scientific data you can say x % of people are affected by this concentration in the blood, with random drugs test you have a zero tolerance policy despite scientific data showing that it would not have an influence on anyone.
There is nearly always choice. You can usually get more than one job offer.
You have no idea how it will affect you or how long it will last. You also can not prove when you took it.
Ah so people over the drink limit could and probably still are fine, but that's fine. Evedience shows that taking any number of drugs causes problems and companies have to protect themself and there employees.
But there's predefined limits to what is considered to impair your ability to perform complex functions. Having the equivalent blood alcohol level of having consumed 100mls of 4% lager will not get you fired from work, because it's seen as being well below the limit at which alcohol will affect your performance.
The same thing doesn't apply to drugs - any sort of positive result and you're out, whether it affects your performance in your role or not. There's no comparable logic between the two processes, especially considering how much more detrimental to your state of mind is alcohol than many illegal drugs, and the distinction comes strictly from that definition - alcohol is a legal drug, that is to say, taxable, and so it's portrayed as being more socially acceptable.
Given the modern hysteria over anything the troglodyte-pleasing tabloid tripe condemns in the name of selling their rags to mouth breathers without the mental capacity to know better, do you really think that alcohol would be legalised and as widely-spread as it is now, were it discovered today? Extremely addictive, devastating to your personal health, wildly psychoactive and more prone to driving people toward violence and beligerence or black depression than anything else. I can't think of many other drugs more deserving of being Class A than alcohol.
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That's not a response, it's just spamming the same tired, baseless argument that was just refuted.
Still not quite on the money, there. We're not talking about how close people can get to the limits while still being fine, but more the existence of such limits for "accceptable" narcotics but not for untaxed substances, often much, much less potent.
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The limit for us is 1/3rd that of drink driving, the reason it is not zero is the body can and does produce alcohol. If it didn't the tolerance would indeed be zero. It has nothing to do with acceptable level. No level is acceptable.
It applies to all drugs, not just illegal. So again has nothing to do with hysteria or anything else.
No alcohol would not be legal, but that's not the argument here.
If your lucky. If they all require drug tests though then your in the same position. Sciens non est volens.
The duration of action of drugs is well known, for example I'm prescribed alprazolam, this drug has a duration of action of approx 4 hours so if I take it the night before there will be no effect on me the next day. The half life of the drug is around 11 hours, so if plasma concentration is 50% of what it would be after I took the drug you know I took it 11 hours ago.
Most drugs if not all are person dependent. And these figures are on the safe side of average.