Free market vs. Drug War?


If job drug tests are expensive and don't decrease drug use, why use them?
Don't laugh too much. It could be happening even as we speak. Time has the details.

In any event, the reality is that testing doesn't catch most workers who use drugs. The vast majority undergo examinations only when they apply for a job, and they can pass by abstaining from drugs for a reasonable period before the test — or by using a variety of masking agents or devices that make their urine seem clean.

That' s why giving a urine sample is often called an IQ test: Any reasonably intelligent druggie can pass it. And unless the law requires them to, most companies don' t randomly test employees for fear of undermining morale. "If we do a good job of hiring the right people, we ought to trust them," explained Dr. Ron McKinley, vice president of human resources at Cincinnati Children' s Hospital, which like most hospitals is required by law to do pre-employment testing and to randomly test workers in safety-sensitive jobs such as truck driving.

Trust may be good business, but it doesn't make for good law enforcement, and employers get more than a little uncomfortable when made to enforce a government policy that cuts against their interests. Much as they have been compelled to police immigration by avoiding productive though illegal workers, employers have been cajoled into fighting the drug war by testing, and potentially alienating, valued employees. They don't have much choice on immigration, but drug testing remains very much optional for those who don't receive federal contracts or otherwise fall under government bans on employee drug use. And as with all bad investments, it' s an option a growing number of businesses are happy to decline.

"Trust may be good business, but it doesn't make for good law enforcement." That's a great quote, and it perfectly illustrates what is wrong with draconian laws.

In the US, we make a big deal out of "innocent until proven guilty," but draconian laws assume you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent. Sometimes several times.

A good business owner knows that he is more likely to get and keep your business if he assumes you are innocent until you prove otherwise. Then he can come down on you like a ton of bricks because you broke the unspoken contract. You would have dishonored the deal. But if he does that BEFORE you did anything wrong, you can take your business to his competition. And chances are, you can drag a a fair amount of his customers with you.

But a government has to rely on force. "Enforce the law" may be justifiable when the law protects individual rights and property. "Enforce the law" is not justifiable when the law is based on "morals." Vice laws are based on moral beliefs, not on actual harm. Most of the harm caused by the vices are caused by the vices being illegal, not by the vices themselves.

Stealing to support a drug habit is wrong. But if those same drugs were as common as aspirin? If quality and purity control were the same as Viagra, there wouldn't be nearly the problems with overdoses.

Most important, legal drugs would contribute taxes rather than costing government money to "fight" them.

Hat tip Drug War Rant.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - July 10, 2006 at 04:38 AM  Tag


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