11 ms·

Fail drug test != show up to work high.

killjoywashere 9y ago
Past performance != future performance But it's the best signal we've got. Ignore it at your peril. Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-guide-to-reducing-lifes-risks.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-gui...
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  > But it's the best signal we've got Except that's not true. We can actually test for sobriety. And by doing drug testing instead, we're actually using a worse signal in place of a better signal! See e.g., http://www.predictivesafety.com/news/2017/2/6/the-advantages-of-impairment-testing-over-drug-testing-to-improve-workplace-safety http://www.predictivesafety.com/news/2017/2/6/the-advantages... > Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time. I'm not really sure if there's more than a vague analogy connecting Diamond's hypotheses to drug testing policy. And I don't find that exceptionally vague analogy to be compelling evidence. (And I'm one of those people who doesn't even buy a lot of Diamond's work anyways; in fact, I think I'm in good company on this one among the sober, grown-up anthropologists out there...) My weathered experience tells me to prefer hard data over vague analogies to pop science writers who are themselves known more for their well-written vague analogies than their well-researched hard science :-)
  - killjoywashere 9y ago
    If I have to test people for sobriety every day before a shift, I don't need to employ them.
    - throwawayjava 9y ago
      I'm not suggesting you do (although I know others on this thread are suggesting that). Administer sobriety tests the same way you currently administer drug tests -- upon application, and randomly. They're a lot cheaper so you can actually get more data for less $/time.
- watwut 9y ago
  Drug test measure whether you smoked weed anytime last weeks, up to three months if I recall right. It has little to do with whether you are high first day on the job. It has more to do with drug war then with incidents.
  - SamReidHughes 9y ago
    If you can't pass a drug test it's a sign you can't get your shit together, abstain from weed, and pass a drug test.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      No it isn't. You've probably been seen and healed by a great doctor that smokes or has smoked weed recently. There is a good chance your financial advisor, lawyer and/or boss smokes or has smoked weed recently. Most professionals who do certainly don't boast about it with the witch hunting Puritan culture in the US, but there are a lot of them out there, and you've probably never noticed because it's not noticeable.
      - SamReidHughes 9y ago
        Yes it is. If your great doctor had to pass a drug test, he would be perfectly capable of abstaining long enough to pass it.
        Clubber 9y ago
        So if there was a test that could tell if you've eaten chocolate in the last 30 days, then you required applicants to not eat chocolate ever, passing that would be an indicator of a good employee? Seems really arbitrary and pointless when you take out all the drug war baggage out of it.
        VLM 9y ago
        I think it odd that the strongest opposition to testing is from people who clearly don't smoke. Its a test of self introspection and awareness and intelligence, not solely discipline. Its not a simple binary "have you been within 10 meters of the devils weed in the past month T/F" question. To fail a test after 30 days of normal peeing takes something like weeks of Cheech and Chong 2.0 behavior to build up the level of metabolites in the body. There's a whole spectrum of use vs time required to test clean. A buzz a couple days ago will not fail a test. Wake and bake the morning of the test is a fail. The kind of person dumb enough to wake and bake the morning of a pee test is not the kind of person I'd want on a jobsite. There's also the question of motivation. There are supplements which basically make you pee alot to pee out the THC and there are test kits at walgreens for $10 that are fairly accurate to determine if you pass. To fail a pee test you have to be unmotivated enough to not even try. Responsible intelligent users will not have trouble passing a test. Irresponsible or unintelligent users are doomed, but those are the kind of people that cause workplace fatalities anyway, so no real loss. This is all aside from unemployment fraud type stuff.
briffle 9y ago
My grandpa took a part time job after retiring after 30 years at chevron/ortho. Failed his drug test. Turns out, they lost the sample, and in the testing companies mind, he couldn't be proven to pass, so he failed.
BuckRogers 9y ago
It doesn't really matter, who sits around using drugs? They don't do you any good and there's many other ways to get "high". Reading a book is the longest lasting. You can also play a videogame to release endorphins if that's what you're looking for.

Past performance != future performance But it's the best signal we've got. Ignore it at your peril. Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-guide-to-reducing-lifes-risks.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-gui...

throwawayjava 9y ago
> But it's the best signal we've got Except that's not true. We can actually test for sobriety. And by doing drug testing instead, we're actually using a worse signal in place of a better signal! See e.g., http://www.predictivesafety.com/news/2017/2/6/the-advantages-of-impairment-testing-over-drug-testing-to-improve-workplace-safety http://www.predictivesafety.com/news/2017/2/6/the-advantages... > Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time. I'm not really sure if there's more than a vague analogy connecting Diamond's hypotheses to drug testing policy. And I don't find that exceptionally vague analogy to be compelling evidence. (And I'm one of those people who doesn't even buy a lot of Diamond's work anyways; in fact, I think I'm in good company on this one among the sober, grown-up anthropologists out there...) My weathered experience tells me to prefer hard data over vague analogies to pop science writers who are themselves known more for their well-written vague analogies than their well-researched hard science :-)
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  If I have to test people for sobriety every day before a shift, I don't need to employ them.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    I'm not suggesting you do (although I know others on this thread are suggesting that). Administer sobriety tests the same way you currently administer drug tests -- upon application, and randomly. They're a lot cheaper so you can actually get more data for less $/time.
watwut 9y ago
Drug test measure whether you smoked weed anytime last weeks, up to three months if I recall right. It has little to do with whether you are high first day on the job. It has more to do with drug war then with incidents.
- SamReidHughes 9y ago
  If you can't pass a drug test it's a sign you can't get your shit together, abstain from weed, and pass a drug test.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    No it isn't. You've probably been seen and healed by a great doctor that smokes or has smoked weed recently. There is a good chance your financial advisor, lawyer and/or boss smokes or has smoked weed recently. Most professionals who do certainly don't boast about it with the witch hunting Puritan culture in the US, but there are a lot of them out there, and you've probably never noticed because it's not noticeable.
    - SamReidHughes 9y ago
      Yes it is. If your great doctor had to pass a drug test, he would be perfectly capable of abstaining long enough to pass it.
      - Clubber 9y ago
        So if there was a test that could tell if you've eaten chocolate in the last 30 days, then you required applicants to not eat chocolate ever, passing that would be an indicator of a good employee? Seems really arbitrary and pointless when you take out all the drug war baggage out of it.
        VLM 9y ago
        I think it odd that the strongest opposition to testing is from people who clearly don't smoke. Its a test of self introspection and awareness and intelligence, not solely discipline. Its not a simple binary "have you been within 10 meters of the devils weed in the past month T/F" question. To fail a test after 30 days of normal peeing takes something like weeks of Cheech and Chong 2.0 behavior to build up the level of metabolites in the body. There's a whole spectrum of use vs time required to test clean. A buzz a couple days ago will not fail a test. Wake and bake the morning of the test is a fail. The kind of person dumb enough to wake and bake the morning of a pee test is not the kind of person I'd want on a jobsite. There's also the question of motivation. There are supplements which basically make you pee alot to pee out the THC and there are test kits at walgreens for $10 that are fairly accurate to determine if you pass. To fail a pee test you have to be unmotivated enough to not even try. Responsible intelligent users will not have trouble passing a test. Irresponsible or unintelligent users are doomed, but those are the kind of people that cause workplace fatalities anyway, so no real loss. This is all aside from unemployment fraud type stuff.

briffle 9y ago

My grandpa took a part time job after retiring after 30 years at chevron/ortho. Failed his drug test. Turns out, they lost the sample, and in the testing companies mind, he couldn't be proven to pass, so he failed.

BuckRogers 9y ago

It doesn't really matter, who sits around using drugs? They don't do you any good and there's many other ways to get "high". Reading a book is the longest lasting. You can also play a videogame to release endorphins if that's what you're looking for.