The ethics of Drug testing

[Papewaio]

actualy companies have more rights than the gov, they do not have to give you a job, i do not believe drug of choice is covered under the equal opportunity employment rules...

from my pov, i work around heavy machinery, i have ten forklifts weighing around 10,000 lbs a piece, semi trucks, trailers, box trucks, and about 80 employees running around my warehouse, and to be honest any drunkard or alchoholic need not apply. my job is to create as safe a working enviorment as possible, and drugs and alchohol, in fact anything that can slow their responses down do not belong in my warehouse..

someone shows up drunk or wasted, first offence i send them home, and give the a verbal warning, second time is grounds for dismissal, ill ua them first to cover myself legally. as for personal problems, ie divorce, i do my best to help them through it, wether that be extra time of to get their affairs in order, or mostly give them a shoulder to cry on, i listen to them and allow them to get their problems off their chests. people with personal problems who are good employees i bend over backwards to allow them whatever they need to get back on track, good employees are hard to find, and im hesitant to loose them. ive gone to the mat for a few before, and told managment if they fired them, id walk with them...but thats me personal morals weighing in there.

Which is what I wrote:

It rarely has the capacity to infringe on what you do out of ours unless you break regulations at work due to what you were doing ie turning up drunk.

Kind of a laconic version of what you wrote. The difference I am pointing out is that if you get drunk on the weekend and turn up sober a company cannot regulate that.

This then leads to another part can a company regulate (illegal or legal) drug use on your private time if you turn up to work without any hangover/impairment from social life?

[Lemur]

What's disturbing is that the policy the company has in place appears to be more of an after-the-fact CYA maneuver, rather than an attempt to encourage a drug-free workplace.

Also, it's fine and dandy to have a company drug test in an environment where personal safety is at stake. But I hear about people being drug tested for all sorts of jobs, things like secretarial work. There would seem to be a privacy issue at play here, assuming you believe in any right to privacy at all.