Workplace Drug Testing
Joe is a high quality employee but if all employees are to be subjected to a random drug test then it is fair for Joe to be included in randomized testing. Why should Joe be left out of the sample just because he is who he is? No doubt there are numerous high quality employees that are like Joe, but the point of the randomized drug test is to fairly survey all employees so that it appears that no one group or individual is being singled out. This could have something more to do with the issue of political correctness, but the fact remains that the policy is meant to be non-discriminatory and that is something that works both ways -- neither discriminating against employees who might look like someone who uses drugs nor discriminating in favor of someone like Joe who looks like someone who does not use drugs. The question that might be better asked, however, is whether it is fair to have randomized testing at all.
There is a morally relevant difference between random drug testing and comprehensive testing in that random testing is merely a politically correct way to be non-discriminatory and still aim to achieve a comprehensive...
The aim is to get rid of employees who use drugs. By not doing comprehensive testing, the company imagines that it is being non-discriminatory, but the very fact that the company does not want drug users for employees is discriminatory in the first
place. Therefore, the company contradicts itself and acts hypocritically by trying to be non-discriminatory about being discriminatory. In terms of whether or not it is morally relevant to screen pre- or post-hiring, the moral relevance is less because the objective has not changed. The controversial subject of effectiveness (Riggio, 2016) has little to do with it. The real question that should be addressed is whether it is immoral to use drugs like
marijuana and
cocaine during off-work hours. There are different ways of gauging the morality of an action, but from the libertarian perspective, one could suggest that there is nothing immoral about using either drug during off-work hours. If, on the other hand, the use of these drugs impairs the employee's ability to work effectively, then there is every reason for that employee to either stop using drugs or be fired. This is a common sense approach to the issue and may…
