Earlier this year, a Mobile Register-University of South Alabama poll indicated that 72 percent of respondents support the concept of random drug testing in schools. And yet random, suspicionless drug testing is a repudiation of everything America stands for. It was, in short, a fishing license. In the 1990s, marijuana replaced communism as the great threat to our society, and drug testing became mandatory for many Americans.
Urine tests are the most common.
The standard practice in administering such tests is to require individuals to urinate in the presence of a witness, to guard against specimen tampering. Some employers, on the other hand, think that hair analysis is a more accurate way to test for drug use. Lab analysis of the hair purports to show whether the person used marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines or other illegal drugs in the previous 90 days. But whether it's urine testing or hair testing, mandatory drug testing is an unprecedented invasion of privacy. Yet millions of American workers in both the public and private sectors must submit to humiliating drug tests as a condition for getting or keeping a job.