First, my rights: As an employer I have the right to hire anyone I want. To take your reasoning out to a logical conclusion, I should be forced to hire anyone who walks in off the street. My method of selecting employees is MY right, as long as we don’t violate the job applicant’s personal rights – and I am very, very careful that we don’t.

Second, the stoned employee’s rights: Is it OK for an employee to be less than 100% effective, and in fact possibly dangerously inadequate, because they’re high? Maybe, per some twisted legal argument, but for sure it’s my right to show them the door or, better yet, spot them before they begin employment.

Third: potential employees. They know that we do drug testing and they can opt of applying for a position (and many potential applicants do just that). They have a right to not apply for the job.

Fourth: I owe it to my 1,000 clients to provide them unadulterated processing of their emergency calls and therefore it’s my job to select the clearest-thinking people available. My clients pay us good money and it’s their right to expect people who perform at 100%. I won’t even go into the liability issues that would ensue if I were to allow a stoned employee to literally cause someone to die. Obviously the solution is to not have stoned employees.

Fifth, my current employees have rights too, and they much prefer that they don’t have to deal with the scattered thinking and emotional ups and downs of a drug using co-worker. We are all in the business together, all try to pull 100%, and all endeavor to show up clear headed in order to support each other the best we can.

Being in Oregon, do you allow a doctor’s note for medical marijuana use, or do you exclude those people on the basis that they may be fuzzy-headed? Is it about submissiveness, or is it about cognition? Which is more responsible for your low turnover?

I’m a second generation ACLU member, and I think pot smoking has no more influence on character than cigarettes (which in my opinion are more disruptive to workflow and health care costs) or, God knows, alcohol consumption — which is legal and nearly sanctioned, even though the “three martini lunch” is less glibly talked about.

The idea that you would drug test, but accept smokers and drinkers, indicates to me that you are using a tool inappropriately, for a collateral result. It may get you a dependable workforce because you’ll weed out (no pun intended) the unconventional thinkers, and you’ll get more people who toe the line to authority. Good on you.

I’m not sure it will get you “out of the box” solutions, but your business doesn’t look like it needs those as much as you need phone center workers who can handle a minor variation of scripting, and show up like clockwork.

Your candidate pool with still include lushes and people on their way to death by emphysema, wife beaters, and all sorts of folks you might not enjoy as employees.

Testing is not a silver bullet, but it makes for an iron shackle on a social standards basis.

Mind you, my company is working on non-drug euphorics to present an option to get people *off* all these substances — but to me that means giving people more choice, not inequitably condemning the choices they make.

The work place should be about function, and what you do on your own time should be your own.

Here’s my response: In a mechanical sense, taking mind-altering substances can’t enhance overall the function of the brain which is not designed to require additional chemical inducement (yes, I’ll get an argument from anti-depressant and amphetamine enthusiasts, that these drugs DO increase effectiveness).

I come to my general conclusions about the negative effects of drugs from my own experience with them, from many years of experience with staff, and from the preponderance of popular, scientific and medical literature. Re the subjective analysis of what constitutes flighty and what does not: That’s a tought one. It’s simply my experience that habitual users of marijuanna tend to have lower levels of foucs and, yes, tend to be flighty. Individual situations may vary! And, yes, there are some non-durg users out there who maybe should be on some kind of medication! So, I am not entirely dogmatic about it, but for my business must have a black-and-white decison-making tool and the drug testing is just that. Being subjective about this will, in fact, not be fair to anyone.

Here’s some additional thought re my standpoint, although not addressed in your comments: I take the libertarian standpoint that what one does with one’s self is private. However (and here’s the crux of the question of personal rights): what I do with my business is private, too. Like my body, I own it — it’s mine — and I have the right to hire non–drug users if I believe they can’t function to the level of non-drug users.

I also believe that the after-effects of drugs diminish effectiveness, too.

So, in the end I go back to my major premise (and it does dovetail a bit with your thoughts regarding the elimination of a large portion of possible employees): There is a huge number of people who chose to guide their states of minds with drugs and it does present a problem in assembling a stable and long-term staff, especially for certain occupations.

Sam’s problem was to find a workforce that could think on the job unimpaired and was stable – not flighty. His words. I know several people (I’m not one of them for the record) who enjoy marijuana and are not at all flighty and have jobs that require them to think clearly and they are successful and stable in those jobs. One I’m thinking of is a professional with an advanced degree. Another owns his own business.

Secondly, I also know several people who are flighty and don’t use drugs – or at least not the kind that show up on an $11 drug test.

Thirdly, I know people whose thinking is impaired by things that have nothing to do with drug use – fatigue or illness for examples, or alcohol which may not be what Sam is testing for.

In addition, drug tests don’t distinguish between the time of use and the time of impairment. Someone who gets high on a Friday night, is probably not impaired on a Monday or Tuesday when the test comes up positive.

I would submit that drug testing does not directly measure the desired results (stability and the ability to think on the job). It measures something that in some populations correlates with those results – and in Sam’s situation the correlation seems to be high.

So my problem with drug testing is that when it’s used in situations where the correlation between what you want and what you test is low, you may eliminate a large population of good workers and make it harder to find and keep a good workforce.