Should workers be fired for weekend drug use?

How much of that do you think is because, in many ways, it will make their job easier?

 

I think that an employer has the right to test their employees. If the employee refuses- they have the right to leave.

I do believe that testing should be paid for by the employer, as well as any time spent taking the tests.

But in no event should an employer break union contract to do anything.

 

If the employer thinks it will benefit his business, yes. We shouldn't forget that the business belongs to them and it is by privilege, not right, that we work for them.

Actually, I think it would be a better investment to provide incentives for healthy lifestyles. But either the stick or the carrot should be an option... it is after all their property rights in question.

 

You are saying that you smoke and don't get high? Your faculties are not impaired by pot? Are you saying that you remain sober when you use it? If so, why would you use it at all?

Medicinal use is justifiable... but not if it is only "mostly".

Like I said before, if freedoms and rights are restored to everyone then I think drugs should be legalized. If you or some other person thinks that pot users make the best employees then I think that idea should be tested by the market.

If someone else wants to have stringent rules relating to the privilege of employment or association then they should have their rights also.

You are either impaired (degree doesn't matter) or you are not. Either you are sober minded or you are not. Either you are alert and watchful or you are not.

 

How much of that do you think is because, in many ways, it will make their job easier? </font>[/QUOTE]Amen.

Being in law enforcement is not about doing what is easier, it is about doing what is right.

There are plenty who serve with me that feel something should be legal so they dont have to worry about it.

Moderation and responsibility in this case look like excuses to sin.

 

AS I said, I work for myself, and don't have to worry about drug tests. My mother-in-law was fired because of a falsely-positive drug test, and she never touched it once, in her life. These tests should not be as common as they are, because they infringe on individual rights, which trump employer rights. Should you be fired for being disabled? Of the wrong race or creed? After all, you claim property rights of the employer.

Why should anybody have to have their reasonable privacy rights violated, for the sake of property rights? Let's just dispense with search warrants; after all, "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about." Drug tests require you to prove your innocence, when there has been no reasonable suspicion. This path leads down a broad road of national DNA databases for everyone, rejection of employment or insurance due to the "wrong genes", and other future actions we can't even contemplate, yet. Perhaps one of those is the "mark of the Beast?"

Drug laws were enacted, not to protect us, but because minorities used them. Witness the Chinese immigrants using the fruits of the poppy; Mexicans smoking marijuana; blacks who rape white women using cocaine, etc. Yet the most dangerous, lethal drug of all, alcohol, is legal and protected by the whites who love it.

Why do you think teenagers tune out warnings of drug use by adults? Could it be that they have learned from their own experience that the claims made by adults are hysterically laughable? Especially when they see their parents enjoying beer over a football game?

How much money goes into fighting a failed war on drugs? In my home state, judges are ordering prisoner releases because of overcrowded prisons. Did you not know that something like 70% of prisoners are there because of drugs? Yet violent prisoners are being released? Doesn't it make more sense to legalize drugs, empty our cells of non-violent drug users (thereby freeing up space for the violent criminals that prey on our streets), and re-allocating 10's of billions of dollars and 10's of thousands of law enforcement personnel to fight violent crime? Not to mention that legalization would take the profit out of drug sales, which currently fund terrorists and dictators?

I have had fatalities in my family from drunk drivers, who were slapped on the wrist and currently walk freely on the streets, when very few fatalities can be attributed to marijuana, yet people convicted of drug crimes serve more time than the average murderer!!! The hypocrisy is so blatant as to stupefy...

I stand by Genesis 1:29 -- it is a gift from God. Disparaging a gift dishonors the Giver...

 

NO, NO, NO. An individual has no "right to privacy" on someone else's property by privilege. They have a right to not be on the property if they don't like the intrusion. But whatever "individual rights" you are referring to end at the tip of the employer's nose- which is in this case the endangerment of his property or even antagonism toward his values while accepting a privilege from him.

The "right to privacy" specifically prevents the government from intruding without justification. I don't think the government should be intruding... but only if people like you will accept the fact that a business owner has property rights that are every bit as valid as your rights. And if he doesn't want to extend the benefit of employment to drug users then it should be his inalienable right to not do so.

People can be fired if their disability prevents them from doing their job even now.

These aren't matters of choice as recreational drug use is.

But ideally, yes. An employers property rights shouldn't be infringed upon by government. People don't have a "right" to work for someone else. Employment is a privilege in any society that respects individual rights.

Of course government shouldn't have to force bigots to do things against their will. The "free press" should expose these people followed by a boycott by people acting out the discipline of liberty and freedom.

Because your rights end at the end of someone else's nose. You can have privacy rights all you want on your own property. But when you accept the privilege of employment and work on and with someone else's property, they have a right to dictate the conditions of that relationship. If you don't like the terms then you have a right to leave... you don't have a right to deny him his rights.

Non sequitur. A search warrant applies to your property. The constitutional right to privacy was directly intended to protect the property rights that you would like to confiscate from others.

An employer is not a court of law. The drug tests are used to prove that you are abiding by the policies you agreed to when you accepted the privilege of employment. One can either abide by them or leave.

No it doesn't. You don't choose your genes. You choose to smoke pot.

I don't know. I think they were enacted as a part of the big government move to social engineering... by which privacy and property rights have been greatly eroded.

I think that the punishments for crime should be severe regardless of race or creed.

What does this have to do with anything? Part of the allure for young people is that drugs are a forbidden fruit and means of rebellion as is alcohol.

I don't drink either btw.

If you will agree to give other people their rights back even if it means you lose privileges then I am in favor of revoking drug laws... but only if I can legally demand that a contractor that comes to work on my house shows a verifiable proof of being drug and alcohol free if I find the use morally objectionable.

Did you know that a very large percentage of violent criminals commit their crimes while under the influence of drugs or alcohol?

That's why I think they should face stiffer punishment. They not only violated someone's rights they engaged in behavior that dulled their senses so that they could do it.

I think this should be treated as capital murder. These people willfully get into a car drunk repeatedly knowing what might happen. That is premeditated, random murder.

No. You are abusing that scripture. Not only does it dishonor to disparage. It dishonors God when people abuse one of His gifts to do things He has forbidden... like being unsober.

Sex is a gift from God. Fornication is an abuse of that gift. Pot as a medicine might be a gift from God. Pot as a recreational drug is an abuse of that gift.

 

elijah_lives,

Pr 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

It appears to me that you are attempting to use God's word as a means of justifying your illegal use of drugs.

In 2 Peter 2:11-17, we find the following admonition:
From the KJV:
11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
12 Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
13 ¶ Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;
14 Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.
15 For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:
16 As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
17 Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.
From the NIV:
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.
12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
13 ¶ Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority,
14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.
15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.
16 Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.
17 Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king. (NIV)

I do not want to sound as if I am being holier than thou, for I most certainly cannot lay claim to that. While I have never used pot, opium, etc illegally, I am a "recovering alcholic", having been free from this addiction for over 30 years, I never tried to use scriptures to justify my actions. It was by God's grace that I was able to free myself from alcohol and later tobacco. You can avail yourself of His help as well. Use of any drug, alcohol, nicotine, pot, heroin, codeine should be avoided for health reasons at least. While nicotine is not currently illegal, neither is alcohol with certain limits, the others are. As Christians, one cannot justify the use of illegal substances except as may be prescribed by medical authority.

I urge you to heed the advice of Peter quoted above, and that of Paul who advised in 1Co 6:12 (NIV) "Everything is permissible for me"— but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"— but I will not be mastered by anything.

God Bless

 

I would have to agree with seeking truth on this one.

What youve managed to do elijah, perhaps not meaning to, is parrot the typical "the problem is not me, its (everyone else, the government, cheech and chong's, whatever) fault.

I do not think your arguement would hold up in court. Drug use is no joke. Dont take it lightly as it is the Devil's tool. A night as a visitor in the ER would bring that home for you when you see how those teenagers that laughed at their parent's 'claims' wind up on the underside of the sheet.

 

Well, I won't argue the issue anymore, since I've given my opinion, except to pose the crux of the problem: tests don't indicate whether the subject is on them NOW, as opposed to (as originally said) weekend use. Hypothetically, I could agree with you concerning employer rights if tests were developed to show being under the influence at the time of the test. To do otherwise does infringe on individual rights, because it is looking at aspects of their life outside of the period of employment. What if alcohol tests given to a suspected DWI were positive, even if the subject had been drunk a month earlier, not at the time of driving? Our jails would be full! What's needed are tests that can tell if someone is high at work, because (contrary to assertions otherwise), nobody is affected by smoking pot a month earlier, but current tests would be positive. The tests don't look for THC: they look for metabolites of THC, which, in themselves, do not affect the individuals (I know this, because my last major was biochemistry). The metabolites collect in fat cells, and are slowly released back into the bloodstream for elimination by the liver. The actual THC is long gone. (Kind of like how some OTC cold medicines cross react, and can result in false positives -- the metabolite signatures are similar).

I realize there are a lot of biases, but it is decriminalized in over half of our states, and it will eventually be legal. I would seek a prescription if it was medically legal in my state, because it helps reduce pain enormously. I certainly don't take it as a joke -- I am quite serious.

 

Now you want blood tests (tox) and BAC taken in the work place? Eh go ahead and do what you want, sooner or later youll decide that being drunk or high at work is not a fun thing and want to leave. And then youll get behind the wheel of the car, and someone like me will pull you over.

 

You have misunderstood me. I don't drink at all. I don't drive at all, due to disability. I don't get high when I work, even though I work for myself. I normally only smoke at night, to help me sleep through pain that doctors can't remove. I enjoy relaxing a bit, I admit. But I do it responsibly, and moderately. I have repeatedly stated that it should be done in moderation and responsibly, if one chooses to do it at all. This precludes all of these things. It is no different from drinking a few beers after work.

I face a lifetime of pain due to my injuries, and yet even convincing legislatures to legalize for medical reasons is an uphill battle, due to the prejudices and misinformation of an establishment that has a stake in keeping it illegal. How many people benefit financially by keeping pot illegal? It is the only drug that I am aware of that has medical benefits, yet is completely outlawed by the FDA. It grows like a weed here in the Midwest, and we (farmers) spend a whole lot of money and labor trying to kill it, in compliance with agricultural regulations.

The plant itself has huge economic potential for farmers and society. You can extract oil from it. You can make clothes from it. One acre of marijuana can replace 10 acres of trees cut down to make newsprint. It has many medical benefits. We should be producing it, instead of fighting it. Legalizing it would improve our trade deficit (instead of trabsferring money to other countries through smuggling). We could reduce spending on a failed drug war, and raise public monies by taxing it. Nearly every industrialized nation does this, but we have not learned these lessons yet, apparently.

It is not the employer's right to dictate what an employee does outside of work. To argue otherwise is taking a too narrow view of employer rights. Employer rights are modified by government all of the time. By using tests that peer into the employee's private life outside of work, it is dictating what that employee can or can't do outside of work. The employer contracts with the employee to perform labor at the place of employment, during work hours; his "employer rights" end when the employee is out of the workplace.

Look, I agree that workers who do not perform as expected, or in an unsafe manner, or are impaired at work are a problem, and should be disciplined -- that's not an issue. But to demand these things outside of the scope of the work environment is wrong, discriminatory, and fascist. It is actually the same justification some employers use not to hire Christians; are you going to defend "employer rights" over that, too? What if the employer was to demand that we all exercise? After all, unfit workers impact insurance costs. What about obesity, which some estimates place at 60% of all health care costs? These are all things that are in the control of the worker, who can change them.

We will never agree on this issue, but it would be nice if you'd try to see the other side of it. I could care less about meth, coke, or any of the others -- I don't use them. We, as a society, accept huge monetary costs and countless deaths and maimings from alcohol, since Prohibition failed, yet we throw pot smokers in jail (in some states) for using a drug that is benign and far less dangerous that alcohol. (I have a friend who spent a year in jail for simple possession). I'm not talking about violent criminals. Violence should be punished, whether it involved drug use or not.

Well, the war on drugs has failed also. Each year, we spend more money on it, build more jails, hire more drug agents, and shift around assets in a losing war. Violent prisoners are released early to make room for more druggies. Meanwhile, drug use continues to increase, and we run huge deficits at all levels of government trying to force people to do something they don't want to do. Every culture in every time period has had drug use integrated into it.

Actually, you might be surprised to know that that many conservatives (and I am a conservative) support legalization, based on the premise that it is an unjust intrusion into private lives. The ultimate property right any individual has is control over his or her own body. Judges, talk-show hosts, politicians, even preachers support legalization. You might even be surprised at the number of respectable men and women sitting next to you in church, or even behind the pulpit, who are users. Drug laws are a recent phenomenom -- they've only been around for less than 100 years. There was no attempt in the previous thousands of years to regulate this. Our founding fathers would be mortified to see how these laws infringe on individual rights.

It's time to give up this war, and concentrate on the real war, on terror, that we are in danger of losing because our resources are finite, and misallocated towards stamping out an herb that is benign.

[ August 25, 2005, 09:47 AM: Message edited by: elijah_lives ]

 

Effects on the Brain
Scientists have learned a great deal about how THC acts in the brain to produce its many effects. When someone smokes marijuana, THC rapidly passes from the lungs into the bloodstream, which carries the chemical to organs throughout the body, including the brain.

In the brain, THC connects to specific sites called cannabinoid receptors on nerve cells and influences the activity of those cells. Some brain areas have many cannabinoid receptors; others have few or none. Many cannabinoid receptors are found in the parts of the brain that influence pleasure, memory, thought, concentration, sensory and time perception, and coordinated movement(5).

The short-term effects of marijuana can include problems with memory and learning; distorted perception; difficulty in thinking and problem solving; loss of coordination; and increased heart rate. Research findings for long-term marijuana use indicate some changes in the brain similar to those seen after long-term use of other major drugs of abuse. For example, cannabinoid (THC or synthetic forms of THC) withdrawal in chronically exposed animals leads to an increase in the activation of the stress-response system(6) and changes in the activity of nerve cells containing dopamine(7). Dopamine neurons are involved in the regulation of motivation and reward, and are directly or indirectly affected by all drugs of abuse.

Source

In high doses, marijuana can cause:

* hallucinations
* delusions
* impaired memory
* disorientation.

Scientists have known for a long time that THC interacted with cannabinoid receptors in the brain, but did not know why the brain would have such receptors. They thought that the brain must make some kind of substance that naturally acted on these receptors. In 1992, they found the answer...anandamide. Anandamide is the brain's own THC (just like "endorphin" is the brain's own morphine). Still, scientists are not sure what the function of anandamide is in the normal brain.

The effects of marijuana start as soon as 1-10 minutes after it is taken and can last 3 to 4 hours or even longer. Experiments have shown that THC can affect two neurotransmitters: norepinephrine and dopamine. Serotonin and GABA levels may also be altered.

Whether marijuana can produce addiction is controversial. Also controversial is whether marijuana causes long-term mental abnormalities. Only future research will give us the answers. It is interesting to note that there are NO documented cases of a fatal overdose produced by marijuana. However, because there is a high level of tar and other chemicals in marijuana, smoking it is similar to smoking cigarettes. The lungs get a big dose of chemicals that increase the chances of lung problems and cancer later in life.

Source

It appears that marijuana is not the benign drug its users would have us believe. There are many references available, pro and con, on use of marijuana. Look at the objective studies, those who do not advocate a position, and you will find the same results as posted above.

Satan uses many disguises to deceive God's people. These range from the serpent in Eden to the deception of organizations like NORML.

 

What somebody does when they're off the clock is nobody's business but their own.

 

Sounds like excuses to sin to me.

 

I agree with emaraldctyangel. What really disturbs me is to see so many professing Christians supporting, at least indirectly, this type of immoral behavior. They use the same arguments that homosexual activists and purveyors of pornography and pedophilia use. In private, no body's business.

 

Homosexuality and pornography aren't anybody's business, either.

 

My brother, you should be more cognizant of the Bible. Study the teachings of Paul on sins of the flesh and how believers should address them. I don't think he would be in agreement with you. By your standard, the local church has no way of disciplining members for even the grossest of immorality.

I note that in your interests, you do not list Bible study. Perhaps you should increase your interest in that subject.

 

That isn't necessary. His property rights dictate that he is the sole authority on how much risk he is willing to assume and which study he respects.

IOW's, his opinion, not yours or any researcher's, is what counts when it comes to HIS property.

You agree to exercise your "right to privacy" in a certain way when you accept a job on someone else's property. Namely, you agree that they have a right to ensure by whatever means necessary that you are not engaging in behavior detrimental (in their opinion) to their business.

If you are not willing to limit the exercise of your right to receive the privilege of employment for someone who demands drug testing then you should go elsewhere... or even start your own "pot" friendly company to compete with the guy you think unreasonable.

We aren't talking about drunk driving or putting people in jail or even crime. We are talking about the terms agreed to between a person and a company to secure the privilege of employment.

None of this matters as it is what you believe. An employer is free to believe as they want also, right? If so, it is well within their rights to operate their business based on those beliefs.

Even if it is just a subjective opinion that pot smokers are generally more dishonest and inclined to immorality, a person has the right not to enter into or sustain any employment relationship that they believe is risky or undesirable.

If government will give the rest of us our rights back to then I am for legalization. I believe completely that financial and social pressures will do far more to reduce or eliminate drug abuse than any government program. This is testified to by history.

 

I didn't say they weren't sinful, I said that they weren't anybody's business.

The problem with your statement is that we're talking specifically about a companies authority to regulate its workers when they're off the clock, not church discipline.

I'm very interested in it. I study the Bible daily and even teach the new believer's class at my church and, up until recently, a Sunday School class.

I didn't list it as one of my interests because I thought, as a Christian, it was assumed that I studied the Bible.