Can we end drug testing? Lawyers please chime in.

[hunt4genetics]

The Fifth Ammendment protects us against "unusual Search an seizure."
Is it safe to assume that one would have an expectation of privacy in regard to the contents of their urine?

Is a pre-employment urine test a violation of our 5th ammendment right?

also,

Pregnancy status is a federally protected status. Could women not argue that a urine test would allow her pregnancy status to come to light?


Just some ideas. Drugs may never be legalized, but if drug test could be outlawed, that would make alot of us sleep better at night.


peace

 

[DIGITALHIPPY]

there has been too much president to sudenly change the way this subject is looked at, apperently its not considered 'unusual' to give a piss-test. maybe back in 1776....

 

[bounty29]

The thing is, you usually agree to take a piss test. Either by applying for the job and marking the box on the application for "I am willing to take a drug test." or by being on probation. If a cop tackled you on the street and made you piss right there just becuase, then we might have some issues.

 

[EasyBakeIndica]

There are communities which have forced major corporate chains to change their testing policies. This requires the entire community to unite and agree not to work for that business if they drug test.

 

[Jeff Lebowski]

Unless you are attesting your rights of bodily excrement this will not win. Same deal as a piece of gum in the trash, or garbage left off your property. You tossed it (trash or piss) they pick it up. So, science wanting money agrees and tests along side. Also, pregnancy at the hospital post birth requires a urine test. This can prove bad for new mothers who use medically or recreationally, unless they smoke tobacco or drink alcohol. Check out mpp videos...

 

[Retardo Motabon]

It's very tied into the insurance companies. Businesses are pressured to test to maintain insurance in many cases. Anyone remember the book Steal this UrineTest?

 

[zingablack]

never heard about that books wats it about

 

[Fuzz420]

It's very tied into the insurance companies. Businesses are pressured to test to maintain insurance in many cases. Anyone remember the book Steal this UrineTest?

I agree its all about "liability"

 

[Maj.PotHead]

The Fifth Ammendment protects us against "unusual Search an seizure."
Is it safe to assume that one would have an expectation of privacy in regard to the contents of their urine?

Is a pre-employment urine test a violation of our 5th ammendment right?

also,

Pregnancy status is a federally protected status. Could women not argue that a urine test would allow her pregnancy status to come to light?


Just some ideas. Drugs may never be legalized, but if drug test could be outlawed, that would make alot of us sleep better at night.


peace

1st you must change nancy regans drug free work place act of 1988 then you must change the insurance companys. specifically private industrail insurance thier the 1's mainly doing this in the private work sector.

and to be honest some jobs really should have drug testing yea i know but would ya want a trucker hauling what 60-100 thousand pounds of freight messed up on say smoken crack or crank/meth. or a pilot flyn a 747 jet hell they allready fly drunk but add some of the drugs out there and or a crane operator or otehr dangours jobs no thx. but the jobs that really should have drug testing is elected public officials every single one of them. nay imuinity from the city councleman or woman mayor judge's to the fn pres of the us. but again nooooo they hide behind the 5th ammendment

 

[CaptainTrips]

Its not uncommon for truckers to do speed or speed like things...A lot of them are indepenpent and they are not tested. Only ones that should be tested are those that have others lives in their hands, such as pilots... If you want to test truckers you might as well test all drivers, which I wouldn't doubt coming sometime in the not too distant future, as a requirement to get/renew your license...

 

[willostat]

I read that book, group of friends passed it around to each other in the early 90s good stuff.

yes captain that does sound likely and typical of the way the nanny state is going

 

[grobart]

The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution declares, among other things, that people shall have the right to be free from Self-Incrimination, double jeopardy, due process, etc.

One would assume that the Rights outlined in the Constitution (including Amendments) are inviolate, however, this is not the case. Lawmakers are, pursuant to the broad powers granted to them in the Constitution, allowed to place restrictions on any constitutionally guaranteed freedom.

The standard used to determine whether or not the proposed legislation is legitimate depends upon the rights being quashed and whether you are a protected class (i.e. woman, gay, black, etc.), among other things.

For example, customs officers who, due to the nature of their work, could come into contact with narcotics, or who carry a gun, are required by law to take a random drug test. This would seem to violate the rights against self-incrimination in the Fifth Amendment, however, because they are not a protected class and there is a compelling interest in the gov't keeping its borders secure, random tests are legit.

See the copied syllabus below from NLRB v Von Raab from the US Supreme Court.

Look for phrases like "compelling interest" and "reasonableness requirement"

The case is 109 S. Ct 1384 and is still good law.

1. Where the Government requires its employees to produce urine samples to be analyzed for evidence of illegal drug use, the collection and subsequent chemical analysis of such samples are searches that must meet the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Cf. Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U.S. 602, 616-618, 109 S.Ct. 1402, 1412-1413, 103 L.Ed.2d 639 (1989). However, because the Service's testing program is not designed to serve the ordinary needs of law enforcement- i.e., test results may not be used in a criminal prosecution without the employee's consent, and the purposes of the program are to deter drug use among those eligible for promotion to sensitive positions and to prevent the promotion of drug users to those positions-the public interest in the program must be balanced against *657 the individual's privacy concerns implicated by the tests to determine whether a warrant, probable cause, or some level of individualized suspicion is required in this particular context. Railway Labor Executives, 489 U.S., at 619-620, 109 S.Ct., at 1413-1414. Pp. 1389-1391.


2. A warrant is not required by the balance of privacy and governmental interests in the context of this case. Such a requirement would serve only to divert valuable agency resources from the Service's primary mission, which would be compromised if warrants were necessary in connection with routine, yet sensitive, employment decisions. Furthermore, a warrant would provide little or no additional protection of personal privacy, since the Service's program defines narrowly and specifically the circumstances justifying testing and the permissible limits of such intrusions; affected employees know that they must be tested, are aware of the testing procedures that the Service must follow, and are not subject to the discretion of officials in the field; and there are no special facts for a neutral magistrate to evaluate, in that implementation of the testing process becomes automatic when an employee pursues a covered position. Pp. 1390-1391.


3. The Service's testing of employees who apply for promotion to positions directly involving the interdiction of illegal drugs, or to positions that require the incumbent to carry firearms, is reasonable despite the absence of a requirement of probable cause or of some level of individualized suspicion. Pp. 1391-1396.


(a) In light of evidence demonstrating that there is a national crisis in law enforcement caused by the smuggling of illicit narcotics, the Government has a compelling interest in ensuring that front-line interdiction personnel are physically fit and have unimpeachable integrity and judgment. It also has a compelling interest in preventing the risk to the life of the citizenry posed by the potential use of deadly force by persons suffering from impaired perception and judgment. These governmental interests outweigh the privacy interests of those seeking promotion to such positions, who have a diminished expectation of privacy in respect to the intrusions occasioned by a urine test by virtue of the special, and obvious, physical and ethical demands of the positions. Pp. 1392-1394.


(b) Petitioners' contention that the testing program is unreasonable because it is not based on a belief that testing will reveal any drug use by covered employees evinces an unduly narrow view of the context in which the program was implemented. Although it was not motivated by any perceived drug problem among Service employees, the program is nevertheless justified by the extraordinary safety and national security hazards that would attend the promotion of drug users to the sensitive positions in question. Moreover, the mere circumstance that all but a few of the **1387 employees tested are innocent does not impugn the program's*658 validity, since it is designed to prevent the substantial harm that could be caused by the promotion of drug users as much as it is designed to detect actual drug use. Pp. 1394-1395.


(c) Also unpersuasive is petitioners' contention that the program is not a sufficiently productive mechanism to justify its intrusion on Fourth Amendment interests because illegal drug users can easily avoid detection by temporary abstinence or by surreptitious adulteration of their urine specimens. Addicts may be unable to abstain even for a limited period or may be unaware of the “fade-away effect” of certain drugs. More importantly, since a particular employee's pattern of elimination for a given drug cannot be predicted with perfect accuracy and may extend for as long as 22 days, and since this information is not likely to be known or available to the employee in any event, he cannot reasonably expect to deceive the test by abstaining after the test date is assigned. Nor can he expect attempts at adulteration to succeed, in view of the precautions built into the program to ensure the integrity of each sample. P. 1396.


4. The record is inadequate for the purpose of determining whether the Service's testing of those who apply for promotion to positions where they would handle “classified” information is reasonable, since it is not clear whether persons occupying particular positions apparently subject to such testing are likely to gain access to sensitive information. On remand, the Court of Appeals should examine the criteria used by the Service in determining what materials are classified and in deciding whom to test under this rubric and should, in assessing the reasonableness of requiring tests of those employees, consider pertinent information bearing upon their privacy expectations and the supervision to which they are already subject. Pp. 1396-1397.


If you need more detailed info about a particularized subject, I would be happy to reply further.

 

[ExEcutioner]

Man, Is there anything about not having to pass drug tests if you are medical? That really sucks, but its okay, we have the tools of the trade and know what to do to beat that corrupt system.

 

[blisstonian]

Man, Is there anything about not having to pass drug tests if you are medical? That really sucks, but its okay, we have the tools of the trade and know what to do to beat that corrupt system.

Yeah the people that give the test, sell the means to pass it.

It's called "catch 22".