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Subject:[RANT 2] Re: Drug Testing From:John Gear <catalyst -at- PACIFIER -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 8 Mar 1995 13:01:00 PST
>I agree, what someone does in the privacy of their home is their
>business. But what guarantee do we have that such activity does
>not extend onto the job?
>If the freelance writer I hired to write my manual is high while
>doing it, but still turns out quality work, fine. To each his
>own. But I sure as hell don't want to find out my pilot is high
>when we're cruisin' at 27,000 feet (no pun intended). If he
>should screw up, there's much more at stake than a shoddily
>written users manual!
Having been management in two of the key "risk" professions (submarine
driver and nuclear reactor operator and nuclear operator/instructor) that
everyone loves to cite with airplane pilots and surgeons, I say "BULL."
Random drug testing tests for drugs you *did* up to months ago in some cases
and they don't test for the substance *most* abused (alcohol). Believe me,
you're a *lot* safer with someone on most drugs than you are with someone
suffering from sleep deprivation, which is a condition under which we *very*
often worked. And which *nobody* tests for or even cares about.
If safety is your purpose then the only rational test is a pc-driven mental
acuity test, such as a touchpad that generates a random pattern of keys that
the person being tested must "play back" with a certain accuracy in a
certain time. This screens out impaired people *beforehand,* regardless of
the reason for the impairment (hangover, lack of sleep, stress from
marital/money problems etc.). Urinalysis has zero, zip, nada to do with
safety and everything to do with control. I don't *care* what my pilot
ingests in the privacy of her own home--but I'd feel a lot better knowing
that she's in good shape when she's on duty!
John Gear (catalyst -at- pacifier -dot- com)
"The same old fraternity boys, geezers in golf pants, cheese merchants, cat
stranglers, corporate shills, Bible beaters, swamp developers, amateur cops,
and old gasbags that we have known since time immemorial."
--Garrison Keillor on the congressional GOP majority
