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As drug use has become an issue of outstanding social concern across the country, drug-testing has become used by many employers. Drug abuse may cost industry more than $25 billion per year in lost productivity, wages, and treatment costs, according to a study by the Research Triangle Institute (Englade, 1986). Drug-use by employees can have a widespread impact on a business. According to Peter S. Bensinger, former director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and now senior partner in the consulting firm Bensinger, Dupont & Associates,
This impact is reflected in lost productivity on the job, unnecessary accidents and absenteeism, deteriorating job performance, highway accidents and deaths family disruption, and! loss of quality in products and services (Englade, 1986).
More specifically, compared with other employees, the drug abuser will have three and a half times as many accidents on the job, will be absent for a week or more two-and-a-half times as often, will file five times as many workmen's compensation claims, and cost employers three times as much in medical benefits. The drug-dependent employee has seven times as high a rate of garnishment of wages (Englade, 1986).
Drug tests have been greatly improved over the last few years, and are now more suitable for employee testing, since they are simple, inexpensive, and more reliable, Private sector employers are not bound by the same constitutional restrictions as are public employers. Public employees are protected by the Fourth Amendment (prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures) and the Fifth Amendment (guarantying due process), while private sector employees are not. For a variety of reasons, many private employers test employees for drug use. Moreover, private employers holding federal contracts now must comply with both the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 and the Drug-Free Work Force Act of 1988. Under the former, a private employer doing business with the federal government must have a policy which encourages a drug-free workplace. The employer must go even further under the Drug-Free Work Force Act, which requires testing for the use of illegal drugs by employers in sensitive positions. However, private employer--regardless of whether they are required to test or not--may still be sued on such grounds as invasion of privacy, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress. Furthermore, an employer choosing not to...