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The Nation's Pulse
Failing the Screen Test
Drug testing only welfare moms is unfair
I was for drug screening welfare recipients before I was against it. Test ‘em all, was my motto. Millions for defense, but not a cent for tributane. Or psilocybin. Or any other controlled substance, for that matter.
These days most of us have to pass a drug test before we can start a new job. It’s a drag and probably unconstitutional, but we can appreciate why some widget manufacturer wouldn’t want a bunch of dope fiends on the pay roll. Daily we submit to these and countless other small indignities just so we can go to work and start paying pay roll taxes; taxes that sometimes go to support the drug habits of people who receive public benefits.
I am, of course, talking about college students. As well as lots of other people, since almost every American gets benefits from the government at one time or other, whether it is middle-class welfare like Social Security or higher education subsidies or Medicare. And please don’t tell me college students don’t supplement their drug binges with federal student aid, or, in some cases food stamps. I’ve been to college. I’ve seen it.
Soon my home state of Missouri will require TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) recipients to prove they haven’t been tooting or snorting in order to qualify for benefits. It’s part of a nationwide trend to crack down on people who receive public benefits, but don’t work. The New York Times reports that “policy makers in three dozen states this year proposed drug testing for people receiving benefits like welfare, unemployment assistance, job training, food stamps and public housing.” Not to worry, none of these policies would deny infants and children their portion of the welfare benefits. Just the hophead parent, which is almost always Dear Old Mom. The children’s welfare payments go to a “third-party vendor.”
Ironically, Republican lawmakers have had no difficulty creating whole new layers of bureaucracy to enforce these policies. That’s how government is able to expand like a “fat tick,” in the folksy words of one presidential hopeful. Democrats create a new program, and Republicans, unable to get rid of it, create programs to counteract it. Before you know it, your state is selling itself on the street corner to pay its bills.
Another major problem is the screening process. Rather than require welfare recipients to submit to random drug testing, officials are supposed to check for reasonable suspicion of drug use, like glassy eyes and slurring of speech, which could indicate either a heroin addiction or a TV coma. In Missouri, the welfare recipient who fails or refuses a drug test stands to lose a mere $58 a month. If you can afford to blow $200 a week on crack, why would you kick your drug habit for a measly $58? Arizona’s law is even dumber. The state simply requires would-be welfare recipients to fill out a three-part questionnaire. The first question is something like: Have you used illegal drugs in the past 30 days? Surprisingly out of 64,000 recipients, only 16 were stupid enough to answer yes and were tested. And you thought Floridians were slow.
I COULD LIVE with all those issues. After all, drugs and welfare have wreaked more havoc on American society than al Qaeda’s army of human time bombs could in 600 years. But why pick on welfare moms to the exclusion of every other middle class junkie that gets some form of government handout? It would be one thing if the facts showed conclusively that welfare recipients are the nation’s biggest drug users. But for all we know, the biggest abusers are college kids — students who last year received $30 billion in Pell Grants. The National Institutes of Health reports that nearly 20 percent of college students use drugs. No study of welfare recipients and drug use, that I am aware of, reports figures anywhere close to that. And I spent hours googling it.
With the exception of drug pushers, no one wants taxpayer money going to subsidize someone’s illegal drug habit. But we cannot simply pick on TANF recipients, as much as some Republicans would like to. With this legislation, only college students and old hippies like Arlo Guthrie will be able to feed their drug habit with public benefits. And, as far I can tell, they don’t work either.
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (47) | Leave a comment
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LindaF | 10.27.11 @ 8:14AM
I have no problems with that. College students often are unbearably self-righteous about their drug use, and about the money they receive (according to most, it's the LEAST that society can do). More importantly, it should cut down on either the drug use, or the cost of paying students to imbibe.
Shamus| 10.27.11 @ 8:17AM
Laws like this sound good, but it's not clear what they really accomplish. The costs of testing may be less than the savings in welfare payments.
Louis Jenkins| 10.27.11 @ 8:42AM
It is wrong to expect the welfare mothers and students to stay straight while receiving entitlement monies. It's a "give me." They should be tested if they are on the receiving end. It is wrong for me to pay taxes to those who imbibe, while I have to stay sober in order to pay those taxes. What is good for one is good for the other.
Mark Shepler| 10.27.11 @ 8:48AM
Well, better late than never, Christopher. Here in FL I was against the idea last year as soon as it was proposed. And on Conservative principles, too or, at the least, the right if inchoate impulses.
I can't quite put my finger on it but I find it profoundly disturbing, not to mention cowardly, extending to the state the power to scrutinize citizens in that way. Sure, today it is a disfavored, and more or less rightly so, group but tomorrow, under different circumstances or the ever metastasizing and power hungary bureaucracies, what then?
Private institutions or employers are not the same. One voluntarily seeks to work for another and thus must agree to conditions and pre-conditions or go elsewhere so I am not troubled by that. But requiring citizens to turn over their urine or blood for a stipend? Don't forget, it is not only they who will accept the premise out of grudging necessity but all who support the idea too and, by definition, none more so than the staunchest. So on what basis would we object later when the logic is extended to other areas of state influenced or regulated life? And if anyone thinks it won't be, well, they haven't been paying attention. It will be as sure as night follows day. Witness airport security nowadays. Can any "conservative" leader make a coherent case for paring back the universal, kabuki ritual it has become? At times, it seems the whole point of TSA's decrees is simply to make them...and have us submit.
Last, I found the whole idea cowardly at its base. If we want to scale back welfare costs then have the guts to say so and do it on that basis. There is plenty of public support for that on its face, no need for subterfuges that subvert liberty and lay a future trap for the rest of us.
caitlin| 10.27.11 @ 9:00AM
While Arlo Guthrie might be an old hippie, do you have reason to believe he receives government assistance and is a drug addict?
If not, why use him as an example?
Other than that, I can see your point in the fact that testing opens up a need for more government agencies. Also, many welfare recipients know how to get around the system.
Diomasach| 10.27.11 @ 3:51PM
He's old enough for Medicare, so yeah, he's getting government benefits
albert constantine jr.| 10.27.11 @ 9:19AM
Please allow me to chime in with my comments after more than 25 years of law enforcement experience. As most conservatives know, there are few truer axioms than the suggestion that there if you want less of something, tax it; if you want more, subsidize it. The taxpayers have been subsidizing substance abuse in many forms for some time now. In the early days of the crack craze, the day after the AFDC checks went out was known as “Mother’s Day”, and unless the legislators who initiated the program defined dependent children as the cocaine habituated, this “aid” did not reach its intended destination. Today, with EBT cards, WIC vouchers, etc., we actually are providing groceries to dependent ninos, as the former residents of Mexico illegally here have managed to push the crack dealer aside to access this particular government largesse.
On the other hand, as diverted pharmaceuticals have become the expanding trend in drug abuse, we are subsidizing this market in a different way. Narcotics prescribed to the indigent and paid for by the Chinese with borrowed stimulus funds via federal bailouts for state Medicaid programs are now being exchanged for cash and distributed for illegal consumption. This market is also helped by private health insurance, and even cash customers. It seems ironic that the way to combat this would actually be to test Medicaid recipients (and others prescribed narcotics) to ensure that they were actually using the drugs we were paying for, rather than selling them to others.
While I think a meritorious argument can be made (as Mr. Orlet seems to suggest) to test all recipients of government aid, I think a more comprehensive solution could be found in shrinking the amount of poorly managed and audited funds injected into these illicit markets by the taxpayers.
John Navratil| 10.27.11 @ 9:30AM
Let me begin by saying that I decry drug testing for employment. If I work for you and a condition of employment is that I arrive at 8:00 AM, or wear a uniform, or on condition of drug testing, fine! I can choose not to work for you. The problem is that drug testing doesn't directly address any problem of the workplace. I'm no fan of drug use, but if I smoke marijuana on vacation I can still work but cannot pass the drug test. If I show up hung over or taking OTC allergy meds, I can pass the drug test but cannot get your job done. (Left for another discussion is the creation of designer drugs, often more dangerous, design to evade the tests.) Job performance should be evaluated by management not some irrelevant test. This is yet another attempt to excise judgment from life.
The public assistance question is another one entirely. The taxpayer suggests that behaviour which may well be responsible for the need for public assistance in the first place, should not be permitted while on public assistance. The taxpayer may be wrong in his assessment but the problems being addressed are not the same even though the tools employed are.
John Navratil| 10.27.11 @ 9:37AM
P.S. The argument about others being able to fuel their drug use using public benefits sounds a lot like Elizabeth Warren saying the capitalist built his fortune using public assets. True in part, but not helpful. The reduction ad absurdum would be mandatory drug testing for all.
Aquanomics| 10.27.11 @ 10:59AM
How about a better solution?
Absolutely no public benefits. None. Nada.
Tired Taxpayer PRM| 10.27.11 @ 12:50PM
Horay! Someone finally gets it!
TrueBlue| 10.27.11 @ 3:16PM
The drug testing part comes down to you doing something illegal. If the company can't trust you to follow the law, how can they trust you with anything else?
John Navratil| 10.27.11 @ 7:37PM
TrueBlue,
Do they ask for your DMV records? Trust is something which is lost, not gained.
Petronius| 10.27.11 @ 10:24AM
Can anybody name for me five activities where government does not have a bureaucratic footprint? I can think of only one, which I won't mention lest some busy body prohibitionist read this and interfere just for spite. After all, ruining the past times and pleasures of others is now our national blood sport.
Dai Alanye | 10.27.11 @ 10:33AM
I can't get too excited about fools using drugs, figuring that someone who wants to wreck his life can alternatively do it with booze or some other form of dissipation. I do, however, strongly dislike the idea that my taxes are going to support someone's drug (or drinking) habit.
Welfare of all types is too generous and too easy to obtain in the US, subsidizing unemployment and leading to bringing in illegals to do "jobs Americans won't do." Americans used to do those jobs, back in the days before the New Deal gradually brought about a relaxed work ethic.
So by all means let us discourage drug use by those on the public dole, and let's also reduce the generosity of that dole while we're at it.
Occam's Tool| 10.27.11 @ 11:30AM
Welfare Moms have KIDS. College students, as a general rule, don't. Taking care of kids while abusing drugs is CHILD NEGLECT. CHILD NEGLECT IS A CRIME INVOLVING CHILDREN.
Does the testing make more sense now? Thought so.
John Navratil| 10.27.11 @ 2:49PM
Occam's Tool,
While I support drug-testing as a condition of assistance, if only for the simple reason that I do not wish to be an enabler of self-destructive behaviour, I must point out that not all people on assistance are mothers and not all drug-abusing mothers are on assistance (remember "She goes running for the shelter of her 'mother's little helper'"). The solution you seek is the drug-testing of all mothers.
I'm sure you are much more familiar with the "monkey" of substance addition than I am. For my money, it's "If you want to take drugs, do it without assistance. If you want to take assistance, do it without drugs. And if you want assistance to not take drugs, talk to Occam's Tool."
(Proof that Occam's Tool is a conservative is that were he a liberal, he'd be promoting drug use to bolster his practice.)
JimH| 10.27.11 @ 10:35AM
How about requiring all elected and appointed officials to be tested?
Occam's Tool| 10.27.11 @ 1:41PM
I had random testing all the time when I worked for Central New Mexico Correctional facility as a condition of employment. The only thing they did differently with those screens that I know of is that they knew that we were eating Vienna hot dogs with poppy seed buns, so our tests for opioids were set a little less sensitive for that reason.
I'm a teetotaler and non-drug user, non-smoker, so I never had to worry about jack.
So, yeah, JimH, I agree with you.
John Navratil| 10.27.11 @ 2:53PM
JimH,
I like it! The only down-side is we might get an even more intolerant bunch than we have already.
Isn't is a great irony that the generation which broke all the rules has become the most intolerant one?
Warrior | 10.27.11 @ 10:41AM
Mr. Orlet:
First of all, it can't be unconstitutional (US Constitution) for a town, city, county, state or privately owned business to require drug testing for any of its citizens. Your interpreting the Consitution as a liberal would. If your premise could be applied, then why can't it be unconstitutional to have set work hours as a condition of employment? I mean it would be great if everyone could just do what they want until all hours of the morning and get enough sleep as to be properly prepared to be productive in the work place. However, what truly is unconstitutional is for the federal government to collect my tax money and redistribute it to the "needy" or others deemed deserving. Section 8, food stamps, Medicare, No Child left behind, mosquito nets for Africa, drone assinations of American citizens, undeclared wars, non-budgeted military actions...I have more if you would like are not to be found in any of the enumerated powers, yet you would rather discuss the contitutionality of testing people who have no consitutinal right to receive a distribution of money taken from other citizens.
This is exactly what is wrong with Republican and neo conservative thinkers.
PolishKnight| 10.27.11 @ 11:24AM
It's not surprising that this has devolved into a debate over the merits of the welfare state in general. The problem sometimes with a big mess is that it's impossible for us to see the floor underneath it. Let's do precisely what Warrior suggested: eliminate the welfare state.
In the short and less in the long term, we'd see a lot of poverty and homeless women and children on the street. They'd make it a point to get into our faces about being hungry and play on our conscience and you can bet your last dollar that the media would find the most sympathetic, attractive mother to profile. Perhaps some woman who went through a foreclosure and now is broke and living on the street with her two kids after her vet husband died in Iraq. That's what how they operate.
In a related story here on spectator, Buffett is promising to give money to the Gates foundation. One thing for sure about the Gates foundation: It's not solving OUR problems! That money is going to some worth causes in Africa, etc. but sadly the wealthy here are not going to solve the problems of the underclass via charity.
In addition, the solution requires some uncomfortable truths many here cannot face: That in order for women and children to be supported properly, they need to be married in two parent homes. Restoring the workplace and family court rights of these men would undermine the women's liberation that many conservative men enjoy seeing their daughters becoming successful career women.
Even so, in that system, some women and men fall through the net either due to disasters (see above), bad luck, or irresponsibility and dealing with them requires a strong policy that private and public charities are not up to. If a woman has a kid with an unknown father and can't take care of it, do you dare tell her that she can't get more benefits or will lose her child if she has another?
It's easy to bash big government and rightly so, but that doesn't excuse us from considering the big social questions.
albert constantine jr| 10.27.11 @ 1:56PM
"Perhaps some woman who went through a foreclosure and now is broke and living on the street with her two kids after her vet husband died in Iraq. That's what how they operate."
While I agree that you are correct that the left would try to do what you describe, I would point out the origin of the phrase "bought the ranch" or "bought the farm" being used to describe a GI being killed during WW II. My understanding is that this came from the lump sum insurance payment from the Servicemen Group Life Insurance that our military members have, which many of their survivors used to pay off any mortgage debt (but then, when would facts and figures ever stand in the way of the left trying to make a point about their cause).
TrueBlue| 10.27.11 @ 3:23PM
Of course, this was also before you still had to pay taxes on land and other property you OWNED. Now even if you manage to pay off your house you still have decades of various taxes to pay on it, and you better hope to God that no environmentalist sees an endangered critter flying over or running through your land or it'll get confiscated by the government.
Big Tony| 10.27.11 @ 11:37AM
If they can't get Welfare check then they can get a disability check from Social Security for their addiction. But all this makes the working class feel good to know the politician are looking out for the taxpayers.
cicero| 10.27.11 @ 11:48AM
Cicero's law of economics: Debt expands to meet the money allotted to it. If the government stopped all student loans and grants, the schools would only be able to charge what the MOTIVATED students could afford. Granted, about one half of all schools would close, and their professors would have to find usefull employment. But that is only one of the upsides.
When they changed ADC fro m a depression era program for widows and orphans to a general welfare program for unwed mothers, we got just what could be expected - a whole lot of unwed mothers. Drug testing under the proposed programs is a farce. What is neededd to an abolishment of the programs themselves. If the liberal class believes this is cruel and heartless, they can salve their consiences by setting up private charities to take care of thee problem.
TrueBlue| 10.27.11 @ 3:26PM
Exactly, if they are so for helping out these people that need help, they can give their own money. I'm all for giving a helping hand to people who are just down on their luck but are still trying to do something to better themselves, but paying for people to sit on their asses and have more kids to soak up more cash they didn't have any hand in contributing to just pisses me off.
It used to be shameful to end up having to ask your own family for a hand out, but people would do it WHEN THEY NEEDED TO. Now the government gives away other people's money, and it's just considered an entitlement, so why shouldn't they take the money? Start with the kids, start teaching them personal responsibility again and get rid of this bull#$%^ entitlement mentality. Then we can get rid of these dang welfare subsidies a heckuva lot easier.
All American American| 10.27.11 @ 1:22PM
Someone already said it---end gubmint handouts. Problem solved.
Its kinda funny in my state the Democrat party is sending flyers to all the citizens touting their candidates. One flyer had a picture of three sad old people and underneath the headline was "Can you imagine a world without social security?"
I called them and said yes, yes I can imagine a world without it. And medicare and medicade and welfare and all sorts of redistributive gubmint programs that rob the productive class to buy votes from the parasite class.
Paul from SA| 10.27.11 @ 1:22PM
I know most welfare recipients are drug addicts, but not pot smokers. Most criminals are drug addicts.
Drug tests, nicotine tests and intelligence tests are all ok for voluntary employment and voluntary welfare benefits.
If you don't want to take the test, you can't get the job and you can't the benefits. It's voluntary.
Kingofthenet| 10.27.11 @ 1:39PM
$200 a week Crack habit?, maybe for a night, Crack ain't cheap, and it's even more expensive if you start with Coke and cook your own in a spoon, once all the impurities are burned off, not much rock left.
Nick| 10.27.11 @ 2:50PM
What a shock!
Kook of the Net is an expert in drug use.
It sure isn't reflected in his comments...NOT!
Occam's Tool| 10.27.11 @ 1:42PM
So, King, like Clint, that would require being a gigolo or prostitute or catamite, or working as an exotic dancer in Williston, ND.
Well, that explains much about Clint and Jack. Thanks, King. ;)
Cap'n Tony | 10.27.11 @ 5:46PM
"Social Security is middle class welfare"? It's not an entitlement; not something for nothing. Some of us contributed for 40-45 years, not voluntarily. Now SS provides a few bucks (taxable). Welfare? I don't think so!
ella8| 10.27.11 @ 6:10PM
Actually that is a great idea. Drug testing for student aid would eliminate all of the kids that are going to college just to party. Perhaps when all is said and done a degree will actually have value again. Not every person is made for college. Some kids take longer to grow up too. They could always make the choice to kick the habit so they can go to college.
ella8| 10.27.11 @ 6:12PM
How about we test recipients of crony handouts too. Could it have prevented the Solyndra scandal, who knows?
kissufim| 10.27.11 @ 10:15PM
You hit the nail on the head when you identified how college students might be using their Pell grants and sub-loans. As a recent student and now educator, I hear college students all the time, as they beg me--with the fervor of crack addicts--to enter my attendance roster a.s.a.p. so they can collect their financial aid (hand-outs). They talk openly to each other about the new phone (or even car) they are going to buy with their grant money. I don't think that them blowing our tax dollars on blow is beyond the scope of possibilities. Yes, EVERY recipient of public assistance should undergo mandatory drug screening. Or better yet, why not have parents of the dear ones be forced to co-sign their student loans and put their cars and houses up as collateral?
POST American| 10.27.11 @ 10:51PM
----YES! ----YES!
MORE needles! MORE 'Big Farma' --uh, we
mean 'Pharma'. And, of course, along with
those ON RECORD cancer virus crammed
vaccines -----MORE drugs to help 'deal' with
the after effects.
---------EUGENICS means ----YOU kiddies!
------------------and we're NOT kidding around.
-----------HUAC meets NUREMBERG 2012---------
-------------------TICK -----TICK -----TICK!
Kingofthenet| 10.28.11 @ 1:08AM
I dropped 4 hits of LSD, smoked some Magic Mushrooms and licked some stamps...I STILL have no idea what Post American is talking about.
Dan Mathewson| 10.28.11 @ 7:10PM
I doubt Post American does either. "Before he got up to speak he had no idea what he was going to say. As he was speaking he had he had no idea what he was saying. WHen he finished speaking he had no idea what he had just said."
short shrift| 10.28.11 @ 3:44AM
JOHN NAVRATIL - - if (hypothetically)) you smoke pot on your vacation and you know you are subject to random drug testing - - depending on what kind of work you do, it may or may not result in any real damage to the service or product you are producing. You have elected to take the chance and therefore, elected to take the consequence.
If an employee is dumb as a plank and incapable of a decent work product, an employer can probably fire him. Try that with an employee who has deliberately diminished his own capacity to work, Good luck. You are his Daddy now and you will get him counseling, send him someplace to dry out, kick and recover. And when he returns to work, you will give him time off to attend his support group. And when he relapses, you will do it again.
If you owned a company, would you knowingly hire someone who used drugs? Do you have any idea of the problems of performance and attendance and if your company is large enough - that your medical coverage will be responsible for sending that employee off the Hazeldon (or some other re-hab) at least once and maybe more. You have taken a no-hoper in to raise.
If you are an airline mechanic and you go out to the parking lot on your lunch hour, get in your car and smoke pot - you will probably reek of it or pachouli. -Where potheads ever got the idea that pachouli was a mask instead of a tip-off is beyond me - more evidence of brain rot. You won't finish your shift. But if you do manage to sneak by, your work is not going to be top quality.
Of course, that is what we have inspectors for. But isn't it a shame that we have to have inspectors and an EPA (Employees Assistance Program) for those who moved from the gateway drug to something more serious. Catering to someone's drug habits runs up the cost of doing business.
My department hired a young woman once - who came to work with her eyes teary, red and glassy and her nose runny. No one knew exactly what she was on, but if she had any power of concentration when she coming off whatever she was smoking, swallowing or shooting,we never saw it. How she got past Personnel Employment was a mystery. She didn't last beyond probation. With a less vigilant supervisor, she might have.
Companies - particularly airlines - have enough safety concerns without taking a bunch of junkies under their wing.
Sadly, every organization has them and, of all the employees regularly filing through our Medical Dept. and on to EPA, I never saw a pot smoker as disciplined as you (hypothetically) - a "vacation toker." Ours were more the send them off to re-hab three times before their union lets you fire them.
While your example was the hypothetical "If I . . ." We dealt only with the real thing. And we wonder why those "mules" are hiking through Arizona with back packs full of drugs. I guess you go where there's a market.
John Navratil| 10.28.11 @ 8:48AM
Short shrift,
I'm a consultant who eats what I kill. I cannot afford to ruin my brain. I am not the typical employee. I did a job for Halliburton a decade ago and was blind-sided by the test on my first day. The "safety officer" had to physically witness my urine leaving my body. I used the opportunity to ensure all surfaces of the bottle were completely covered. I wanted him to get all the urine he needed. I absolutely will not submit to another employment drug test ever. You are free to reject my services.
I do own a company. I occasionally contract tasks out and have never considered a drug test. If the work doesn't get done to my satisfaction I terminate the contract.
As you point out, inspectors, management or others in charge have a job to do and, as you point out, did it without needing the drug test.
Of course, there is a market here along with a prohibition and job protections. It's hard to view the issue in isolation. That said, any company is perfectly to require a drug test.
short shrift| 10.28.11 @ 3:15PM
John - it was an invasion of your privacy to see your urine leave your body. Some companies go to that extreme because of the many ways people have of secreting a clean sample and supplying it, in place of their own. When a pilot "brings a sample" with him and in the privacy of the restroom he pours the sample into the bottle we supply and passes it through the little window, and the lab tech turns to me and says this is cold - give him another bottle and tell him I spilled this and she pours it into the sink. People have been known to turn to the sink and half fill the cup with water from the tap. But if you won the company and you want a urinalysis - anyone who doesn't want to supply the urine can go somewhere else.
I don't like being weighed, I am not overweight, I just don't like it. One day a tubby little nurse, asked me to get on the scale. I said, "You first." She said, "uh, wha-?" I said, "You first. Do you think it is entirely fair that you get to know what I weigh and I don't get to know what you do?" She said "I will just put down "Patient refuses to be weighed." I said "Why don't you just put down Nurse refuses to be weighed, I didn't refuse, I just said, You first."
I recall a funny Seinfeld segment where Elaine had been eating poppyseed rolls and tested posted for heroin. Then she got a sample from Seinfeld's mother and Peterman her boss then said she could not endure a trip to Africa because she had the body of a 65 year old woman. Know your donor, might be a good idea.
As for other employees not having a urine test - they have an annual physical. Urinalysis is not optional. Pre-employment physicals have them.
We can't catch 'em all, but we do our best. Make that past tense. I am speaking of the 70s and 80s when I worked there. That was a time of two other bugaboos -= Sickle cell anemia when it was being predicted the black population was going to be wiped out by it. And then our male flight attendants were sickening in a way not seen before. No one knew what it was or how to treat it. It was first known as GRID - gay related immune disease.
Later AIDS. For a time we had to ground all male flight attendants, Passengers refused to be served by them. As time went by the disease and how it was transmitted and how it could be prevented became known. You would think that would have ended what could have become a plague in the gay community, wouldn't you. Think again.
I am talking SAFETY - that a mechanic working on a plane should be clear headed. That the pilot of that plane should not have undetected diabetes =- a coma at 35,000 ft is not good. And the flight attendant who is HIV positive if the passengers do not wish to be served by someone in a compromised health condition. Back then, precautions had to be in place because it was not known what we were dealing with.
You are speaking of so many other things. You sound like a fella who bristles at authority and that is OK, too. You have found a career where you have to answer to no one and that is good. The sad ones are those who are locked into a job where they have to answer to many and still have the hot button issue with authority - - don't know much themselves, but don't want to be told anything!
John Navratil| 10.28.11 @ 7:07PM
Short shrift,
I don't bristle at authority, I respect authority, I bristle at authoritarianism. I'm a classic liberal of the leave me alone and I'll leave you alone variety. The reason I have this career is precisely because of some particularly picayune management I ran into early on. I am blessed.
However, I do answer to someone and that is the client. When the client ain't happy, ain't nobody happy! Also, sometimes I work for a real a--h---.
short shrift| 10.28.11 @ 5:00PM
Orlet says why pick on Welfare Moms when there are all those middle class junkies.Well, Orlet, if the Welfare moms are on welfare, presumably they are also that quaint euphemism, Stay-at-home Moms. Now, there are Stay-at-home Leave it to Beaver Moms and there are Stay-at-Home-Stoned Moms. If the government is giving women who have already demonstrated a certain irresponsibility in choosing to have a flock of kids by multiple sperm donors, there is a good chance she is not using her welfare money wisely. Keeping her "clean and sober" even for the brief window when she is drug tested might be good for the babies, unless it just makes her so cranky she goes home and beats the hell out of them because she needs a fix and can't get it because if she does she can't get the money she needs to get the fix.
There is no answer. Quit looking for it.
chester arthur| 10.28.11 @ 8:37PM
I wouldn't take a job that requires a medical exam or drug test.Require either?Pick a sheep.I don't drink,smoke or take drugs,and don't feel the need to feed the ego of some moron who 'requires' me to prove anything.If they don't take my assurance as true,why should I trust them to fulfill their obligations to the employees?I also never intrust my life to someone who takes these tests.When they submit,they've made a dumb decision,and my life won't be dependent on their next one.As far as pilots,since 1903 we haven't had a drug crazed pilot crash a plane,so who are they looking for?The first round of commercial pilot testing caught one idiot,and he was only applying to be a pilot.For those who think drug testing a necessity,how did the world survive before the 1980's,when testing began?I'll stick with the founders' intent and skip the little tyrants' game.
POST American| 10.28.11 @ 11:11PM
---AFTER you've googled up the background
on the LIVE cancer viruses packed into the
POLIO 'vaccines' --------CHECK OUT the
latest 'FX' of the Gardasil shot on little girls.
---------------------'YOU--genics' in action.
----------HUAC meets NUREMBERG 2012----------
------------------TICK ------TICK--------TICK!
short shrift| 10.28.11 @ 11:43PM
I was not referring to urine testing of pilots for drugs. Urinalysis is a diagnostic test - not just a drug test. A pilot has an annual company physical exam. He is seen by the flight surgeon. He then has his blood drawn and "goes" in a cup. From there he gets a chest X-ray and a pulmonary function test. Then he sits in an audio booth for a hearing test. Followed by an EKG and maybe a treadmill. If he wants his job, he does this once a year. It is mandatory.
OR, maybe none of it is done anymore, I retired a few years back . Maybe all the pilots got together and protested and the FAA backed down and nobody has to have a physical anymore. But I doubt it.
If a person suspects he might be borderline diabetic - and might be "spilling sugar" (into the urine, chester, if I am going too fast for you) he might just rather not have it diagnosed, thinking it going to mean treatment, medical leave, insulin - - maybe medical grounding - who knows what people think. Captains are pretty covetous of that first seat. They sat in second long enough before getting to say, "This is your Captain speaking". This is how much it means to some of them: I got a phone call one day for one of our flight surgeons "this is Captain Flyguy (not his name) - - let me speak to. . . ." I go to files to get patient card for doctor. Can't find. Someone says, "Oh, him ?- - he retired 22 years ago but he is still Captain in his mind." This is far off the urinalysis point. . .but an illustration of how important your job can be to you.
You don't want to work anyone who won't take your word for it that you are clean and sober and always have been. Have you ever wondered why companies need Employee Assistance Programs?
Who do you think they are counseling? Drug abusers,that's who. And drunks. And nobody ever wrote on their job application in the Comments Area, "Oh, and by the way, I smoke cocaine laced pot. But only on weekends." or "I am a binge drinker and if I am ever AWOL for ten days . . "
How do you feel about finger printing? I worked at Camp Pendleton in my youth - all ten of my finger prints are on file somewhere. They are in the airline personnel files, too. As are 17 years of blood chemistries, EKG's, chest x-rays, the "dreaded" urinalysis, audiograms. There is even a record of any surgical scars, identifying birthmarks... I didn't know it was an invasion of my privacy. I was offered an annual physical and I took it. I thought they were looking out for me. I never had the paranoid thought that they were looking for something to hang me with.
I imagine it has been outlawed by now, but there was a time - when I was hired) there was even psychological testing, MMPI and another one. You probably wouldn't like that, either. Ask Occam's Tool.