The Futility of Drug Testing

The Futility of Drug Testing

The use of drug testing by companies has increased significantly in the past few years. Many companies feel that drug testing is an essential component in their attempt to combat drug abuse in the workplace. An employer’s right to know whom they are hiring stands in conflict with an individual’s right to privacy. I believe that workplace drug testing is wrong because guilt is assumed until the drug test proves innocence. Pre-employment drug screening should be discontinued because it is a costly procedure, it hasn’t been proven to serve its purpose, and there are plenty of ways to pass a drug test if you do use. Furthermore, this practice is an obvious violation of civil rights.
In 1990, the federal government spent $11.6 million to test 29,000 federal employees. Of these employees, only 153 tested positive, meaning that the cost of detecting a single drug user was roughly $77,000 (Ehrenreich 128). This hardly seems worth the money and...