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From: larry@csccat.UUCP (Larry Spence)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.drugs
Subject: Re: Koop on drug testing in the workplace
Message-ID: <3474@csccat.UUCP>
Date: 17 Jan 90 02:18:01 GMT
References: <51002@bbn.COM>
Reply-To: larry@csccat.UUCP (Larry Spence)
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc
Distribution: na
Organization: Computer Support Corporation. Dallas,Texas
Lines: 70

In article <51002@bbn.COM> cosell@BBN.COM (Bernie Cosell) writes:
>I'm shattered.  One of my heroes, former Surgeon-General Koop, is
>actively encouraging employers to begin drug testing their employees
>
>On an interview on NPR, he referred several times to the notion that
>employers should do this for the employee's own good --- even in
>circumstances where he agreed it makes no difference at all to the
>employer or to the employee's performance on the job.  He was esposing
>this intrusion into the employees life because *HE* thinks it will be
>"for the persons own good" [a catch phrase that almost always covers
>shoddy thinking], and that this is an important thing to do because it
>_might_ turn into a full-scale, life-ruining addiction, or it _might_
>cause a real degradation in the employee's quality of work.

I just heard the same NPR interview.  I want to puke, projectile-style.
Koop also said that regular drug testing "improves employee morale."  Huh?
Check out Soviet Russia for examples of "employee morale" in totalitarian
environments!  He also claimed that studies had shown that 2 out of 3
Americans favor mandatory testing.  Please say it ain't so!  The worst part
was that statement about testing even if the employee is having no problems
with productivity, etc.!  Arrrrrggghh! So my employer can come in zombied 
and laughing on Xanax (legally, of course), and that's OK -- they're looking 
for ILLEGAL drug use, just as a matter of principle!  LEGAL drugs don't
cause anyone ANY problems with their lives, OH NO!

>How sad.  Koop is so popular, and they're approaching this so diagonally
>[he's trying to help Orrin Hatch get a "federal standards for drug testing"
>bill pushed through], that he may well pull it off.  After that it will be
>VERY hard to stop, since it has now been defined to be "not an intrusion" to
>require that employees pass regular drug tests. 

Really?  The last I heard was that most decisions supporting testing had 
been overturned, except for pharmacists, pilots, etc.

>How very very sad for us
>all.  I wonder if the next thing will be to require that we get our teeth
>checked every six months, and if there'll be a vigilante squad to come by my
>house and insure that I'm tucked into bed at an 'approved' hour so that I get
>my rest and I'm not too tired the next day... couldn't have me sleepy on the
>job, now, right????

And where do you stop?  What if an employee spent several hours boning his
girlfriend/wife one evening, and was still a bit out of it the next day?  Is
this going to be subjected to governmental controls, too?  I think you'd see
a lot more protest over THAT than over regulations designed to stop "those
drug fiends."

>And even MORE worse (if you can believe that), is that Koop isn't doing this
>because he wants to further the war on drugs.  He's doing it because he
>thinks it is RIGHT... that is, his paternalistic view of what the all-knowing
>benevolent employer should be doing to help look out for and help the poor,
>ignorant, bumbling employee includes these sorts of intrusions into the
>employee's lives.  What is this world coming to????

Good fucking question.  People seem all too willing to approve of this crap,
since they see it as not directly affecting them, except that it helps rid
the world of "drug scum," who are of course responsible for America's 
declining productivity, moral decay, MTV, the economy, etc.

Didn't someone post a while back that there was a study that showed NO
higher productivity at companies that did drug testing?  I'd like to see that
publicized more.

[Please note that the example I gave involving my employer being fucked up 
on Xanax is PURELY hypothetical.]

-- 
Larry Spence
larry@csccat
...{texbell,texsun,attctc}!csccat!larry