A Modest Proposal

My company drug tests all applicants for employment. That includes contract employees that we hire through a labor staffing service (that’s a fancy way of saying we use a lot of temps). If you fail the drug test, you don’t start work.

We also require periodic random drug screens. For the temps, you only get one bite of the apple. You fail a random test, you do not pass GO; you do not collect $200 dollars. Your assignment ends and the temp service fires you.

For our regular full-time employees, the policy is more lenient. If you fail one drug test, you get the option of being suspended while you go through drug rehab counseling. By the way, the employee has to pay for the cost of rehab. If the employee does not pay for rehab, or gets a second positive drug test, we fire them.

If someone is terminated for failing a drug test, they are not eligible for unemployment benefits. It’s treated the same way as if you had quit your job. One other place employees are drug tested is right after any workplace accident. A positive drug test there leads to a denial of worker’s compensation benefits. “Stitch yourself up there, buddy. Bet you wish you hadn’t done those lines of coke this weekend, huh?”

The laws allow the stoppage of benefits to drug users. The laws allow it because as a democratic society, we have collectively decided that the use of illegal narcotics is harmful to society as a whole. So we allow significant negative consequences to befall people caught using while they are employed. And drug testing in the first place is allowed because of free association. Nobody holds a gun to your head and tells you to go to work for a company that drug tests. The individual’s freedom of choice is preserved.

My question is this: If drug use disqualifies you from unemployment and worker’s comp benefits, why shouldn’t it disqualify from other types of benefits? Welfare benefits or disability benefits, for example. If random drug screening was a condition of receiving benefits, that would have to make a dent in the demand for illegal drugs, wouldn’t it?

I would like to hear what the arguments are against such a proposal. If we tried to put a policy like this into place, somebody would scream that it wasn’t fair. But I don’t see it as unfair.

If you are going to take taxpayer money, surely the taxpayers have an interest in making sure you are following the rules that society sets up. After all, nobody holds a gun to your head and makes you sign up for welfare.

It’s your choice.