Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hiring Hurdle: Finding Workers Who Can Pass a Drug Test

All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not a business owner in CO, WA, OR or CA and whatever other states have legalized pot.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/b...ng-workers-who-can-pass-a-drug-test.html

I hear this complaint repeatedly from business-owning friends. They have plenty of jobs to offer but prospective employees cannot leave the dope alone.

I was talking to a Home Depot employee the other day when it was obvious that the checkout aisles were very short-handed. He said the whole store has a constant struggle to find workers who can pass a drug test.

RS

Alcohol is a "drug" they don't test for which causes more problems than weed.

If it's legal they shouldn't be testing for it anyway

At my brother's place of employment they can and do test for blood alcohol level, not just weed et al.

There are still those pesky Federal laws making MJ illegal. In addition to that, there are all manner of workplace safety laws (and liabilities) in play. If you had a clue, you'd already know that.

The local Volvo[heavy truck] plant has stacks of partially filled out applications.
As soon as the prospective employee's get to the piss test section, they just set pen down and walk away.

This is not by any means a new phenomenon, has been going on for years and years. I was a USAF recruiter in the 1970's and we had the same problem.

Every random "drug" test I've had to take included alcohol as well.

Yep. I know several folks who have moved up the seniority ladder after a lay-off because a few dumbasses in front of them showed back up afterward and popped hot on the piss tests for alcohol, pot, or various other drugs.

Considering how poor the job prospects are in that region, and that the Volvo plant starts kids (yes, kids at 18-19 years old) out at better than $18/hour, you'd think they'd get a clue.

I take great satisfaction in having been instrumental in the ejection of pot heads in the Navy in the early 80s. It is still around today, but thanks to aggressive testing and education, it has been greatly reduced. We also screened for alcohol whilst on duty only. Today as a contractor, we randomly check for all of the above.

You've been corrected about your assertion that alcohol isn't tested for, so I'll just leave it at that.

But your last assertion is (also) plain ignorant. This isn't about what you do at home. It's about your state at work. Doesn't matter if it's legal, you shouldn't purposely be impaired at work. However, you can't test for that with pot and some other drugs. Your either a user or you are not. Nobody is going to be fool enough to trust you when you say you only use at home... because you can't prove it.

It's really a testament to how screwed up things are that people are able to turn down jobs because they don't want to quit using drugs. Those people should be starving.

Never done a drug test that didn't include alcohol....

The problem here is that the test for alcohol determines if you are right now under the influence via exhailed CO2. The Cannibus test can show if you have taken within the past month and may not be in any way under the influence. That's like me drinking a beer last weekend and the test on Friday shows a positive. Hardly a just result in my opinion.

Actually the problem is the idiots who don't understand that. It is pretty simple, if you work for a place that drug tests then don't use drugs or come to work drunk if you want to keep your job.

If you are the man paying the bills are you going to take some flunkies word for it that they aren't getting high at lunch?

Tell me about it!

the "problems" with MJ:

a) it can be detected by testing for a lot longer than alcohol can, greatly blurring the distinction between being under the influence at work and having the equivalent of a drink or two at dinner.

b) it's actually legal to consume MJ in quite a few places now


the distinction between saying "you can't ever drink when off duty" and "you can't ever smoke pot when off duty" is blurry and the testing is too crude to allow you to make the call as an employer.

We're pretty small - two 30-employee companies and we've gone back and forth on this ad nauseum. I don't have an answer because even in Utah filling out a staff that doesn't ever toke is impractical

Uh...you really think they would have passed a drug test if it was still illegal? You're delusional.

Obviously not. Heck, even the article was about GA. But the floodgates are open in legalizing states. It will be MUCH worse there. I've met plenty of people in my time who told me they wouldn't smoke pot simply because it was illegal.

Simple as that, why is that so hard to understand?