Saturday, May 30, 1998

On the way to employer's drug test

By Bob Greene

ATLANTA -- It was the third time I'd heard someone say the words -- or words similar in meaning -- within the last few weeks.

This time the person was using a pay telephone that happened to be next to the one I was using.

"Yeah, I had to stop off and take the drug test, so I'll be a little late," he said to whoever was on the other end. He was in a hurry but not in a bad mood -- in fact, he seemed sort of cheery. Like he'd checked off one duty on the list of things he was supposed to do that day -- he had taken his drug test -- and now he could move on to the next. Assignment completed.

It's an expected part of getting a new job these days -- like meeting your supervisor or learning the quickest route to the office. More and more, if you want to work for a company, you're going to have to let them test your system for drugs first. You have the option not to submit to the test -- but if you don't, you won't work for the company.

It's one of those changes in American life that has evolved so gradually it's difficult to remember when things were different. They were, of course -- less than a generation ago, the idea of requiring prospective employees to be screened for drugs was, if not unheard of, then highly unusual. The people who were asking you to come to work for them thought you might be using drugs? You might be offended at the very notion -- if they were that suspicious of you, then why would they want to hire you in the first place?

The world changed. By 1986, it was occurring to U.S. corporations that drug use by American citizens was much more widespread than at any time in the country's history. Drug abuse was costing the U.S. economy an estimated $60 billion a year. The President's Commission on Organized Crime issued a report asking all U.S. companies to test their employees for drug use.

By 1991, more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies required drug tests for their workers; by 1995 it was not only the employers, but the employees, who were saying drug testing was a good idea: A national study commissioned by the Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace that year found 97 percent of workers polled "believed drug testing was appropriate and should be done under at least some circumstances."

The issue here is not whether drugs have become a larger concern in the U.S. than they once were; they have. But the mandatory drug testing for men and women before they are hired is doing more than reduce the number of drug abusers in the workplace. The testing is changing the texture of American life.

How? In the same way other changes considered necessary are changing that texture.

When you walk through an office building now, you are likely to be tracked by video cameras. You are being watched, literally. It's done in the name of security.

When you enter airport concourses, courthouses, many government buildings, you pass through metal detectors, and your purse or briefcase may be searched. Security.

Whenever there is a violent tragedy at a school, you hear within hours "crisis teams" of counselors have been sent in. Such tragedies have become so predictable that the crisis teams are trained and assembled before the fact -- they're like firefighters in a land with revised fears.

All of these precautions make a certain sense. It's all a part of the protect-us-from-each-other atmosphere of our new society. Presumption of innocence? You, who are asked to take the drug test for your new job, may be assured by your prospective employer you are presumed to be innocent -- it's not you that your employer thinks is a drug abuser, it's your neighbor. The other person competing for the job opening.

So when you decide you want to work for a company, you are resigned to doing something that would have shocked your father or grandfather on the day he went looking for work. You will be informed, by someone you aren't even officially working for yet, that you must go to a certain address and urinate. Are you offended? Fine -- don't work here.

"Yeah, I had to stop off and take the drug test, so I'll be a little late."

The man saying the words into the pay phone probably had a surveillance camera trained on him as he spoke. Why wouldn't he? He's an American citizen, and it's 1998.

Chicago Tribune