Employee Drug Testing In The Workplace Essay

415 Words2 Pages

Employers entrust their employees with many responsibilities. For this reason they feel the need for employee drug testing prior to hiring you. This is especially true when you're working with heavy machinery, responsible for assembling items, or you're a driver.

Why Employee Drug Testing is Important

The United States has really strict guidelines regarding workplace safety. Businesses must provide their employees with safe working conditions. This means reducing the risks of accidents happening. For this reason, employee drug testing is very common. Employers understand that people who abuse drugs have their reasoning and logic altered so they may cause unneccesary accidents and deaths that would be prevented otherwise.

Many businesses also conduct drug testing as part of their …show more content…

This is because President Ronald Reagan signed an executive order banning the use of drugs among Federal employees in1986. Then in 1988 the Drug-Free Workplace Act made it mandatory for Federal employees to abstain from drug use. When this order was signed similar legislation also went into effect in almost every state. A lot of America's biggest corporations decided this is a good practice for all employers. Since then, many employers have undergone drug testing as terms of their employment.

Many people who argue against workplace drug testing argue that it isn't a good practice. Although they willingly recognize their employer's concerns about drug use among their employees, these opponents argue that drug testing violates their privacy. They say that this is especially true for anyone who isn't working in a positions that utilizess dangerous equipment, such as office workers. This debate probably won't end anytime soon. As businesses continue taking advantage of employee drug testing, opponents continue arguing against it because they say it violates their right to