Here is the drug testing issue from my point of view.

(Kent, you still live in Alaska, stop me when I am wrong)

Three to 5 times a year, my boss walks up to me and orders me to drop what I
am doing, and go give a sample, because one of the people we contract with
requires that we test all our employees randomly, and they just called and
gave the boss three names that they want tested. I have two hours, by law,
to get it done (which gives the heads time to prepare themselves for the
test). It pisses me off. I am being treated like a fucking criminal, where
no evidence of any crime exists, but, I have to *prove* that I am not
guilty. I have had no absenteeism, my work is spot on, I do my job very
well. I go into an office, take off my shoes and hat, turn my pockets inside
out, unstuck my shirt and lift it so the nurse can see I have nothing in my
armpits (feeling a lot like a fucking child now) and I go into a bathroom
with a square hole in the door, and with a nurse listening outside the door,
I pee in a cup, and hand it to her, all warm and foamy. I sign papers
absolving the testing facility of any and all legal responsibility. Three
days later, my boss walks out, shaking his head, and hands me the results of
my piss test, which is clean. He blows 3 to 5 thousand dollars a year on
this bullshit. Two machines down the line stands Al. Al's eyes look like
bloody slits in his face, because he is fried. He is smiling at me, because
he got away with it again. Al isn't exactly Lead Man, but he serves a
purpose, and earns his keep. Me and the boss know the fucker is stoned, but
he doesn't dare fire him, for fear of another lawsuit. If he follows the
law, and offers Al drug treatment, he has to fire one or two people to get
the money to pay for the $15,000 cost of a treatment program, and what he
gets in return isn't worth the 15 grand investment. Sure, Al can be gotten
rid of, but then you have to train another one, and he passed the
pre-employment piss test too (which is another $250).

I go home, pissed off at being humiliated and treated like a child, the boss
calls me up, and we head to the bar. We find Al in the parking lot, smoking
a double. He's not at work, and he just passed a piss test that day. Oh
well.
I get fucking plowed on my good, legal, Republican booze, and go home and
pass out. I wake up loaded and hung over, still mildly drunk, and I go to
work impaired. But, that's OK because alcohol is legal, and I have no
worry's about losing my job for being drunk and hung over, and, they aren't
going to piss test me for alcohol.

I am a machinist by trade, and I cant do my job if I am stoned. Too many
numbers and dimensions and things flying around in circles to keep track of
to be loaded. My job is not life threatening, I am not transporting your
family through the skies. Why the fuck is it that I have to be subjected to
this humiliating invasion of my rights and body, when school teachers, law
makers, cops, lawyers, judges, and everyone else doesn't? *And*, when this
testing is of so obviously limited value? Heads laugh at the pee tests. Ask
an ex con or parolee what they think of urine tests. They will laugh. They
know a hundred ways to beat these tests. And us taxpayers pay for it all.

Trey, when was the last time your boss ordered you to drop what your doing
and go pee in the jar? Do you random test the members of your team?
Why not?

And before you guys throw *anyone's* rights away, let me point out a couple
things:

1) They aren't *your* rights to throw away, they are also mine. If you want
to toss some of your rights, far out, just don't touch mine.
2) These rights have been paid for, in full, with blood.
3) Next time *someone* decides that a right isn't needed, or "fuck their
rights"
lets hope they aren't talking about a right *you* would like to keep.

This is the right you are proposing we throw out the window:

Amendment IV
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized."

Pretty clear to me.

No one has any right to operate a vehicle in a way that endangers others, as
in drunk driving. 50,000 deaths a year, right? What has urine testing done
to address this issue? ZERO. How about a two drink limit at the bar? I can
already hear them screaming all the way to Capitol Hill. Its all bullshit
and economics.

Its a matter of education, not legislation.

Trey, why did you quit doing dope and drinking and driving? Because of fear
of a urine test? Because you got busted? Or because you got a little
smarter?

I am raising my two boys in a world *full* of dope, violence, and fucked up
people, but they have no desire to do dope, or pack guns to school. Why?
Because I took the time to make *sure* they are educated *truthfully*about
these things. Anyone with a couple connected neurons can see, if presented
with *truthful and accurate* information (pay attention school teachers),
that dope is a one way street with a dead end. I know all about dope,
because I have done almost everything there is. I quit because I woke up,
not because I got busted, and certainly not because I was worried about a
pee test.

If you think that piss tests guarantee your safety, you really have your
head in the sand.

Its really a simple issue. People are going to get high. They always have,
they always will. You cannot legislate morals or responsibility. What you
can do is subject a whole bunch of people, most of them innocent, to a
humiliating, degrading system that does nothing more than bust the really
stupid ones,
and create another industry to extract money from the working man and small
business.

What should be done is the laws need to be changed so that when an employer
feels he has a loaded employee, he can demand a random test, backed up with
the reason *why*, such as always late, fucked up work, accidents, (its not
hard to tell when a person is loaded), and if the employee refuses, he is
fired on the spot, with no legal recourse. If he tests positive, he "may" be
offered one chance to keep his job, but he has to be willing to be subjected
to random tests, at his own expense, until the boss feels the issue is
settled. Or, he is simply fired, and when he uses the employer as a
reference, the previous employer should be able to say "We fired him because
he was loaded at work." without concern about lawsuit.

As related to divers and diving, anyone who dives under the influence is
rolling dice. *If* one of these divers croaks, or causes another to be
croaked,
testing is done. If the dead diver tests positive, the family gets nothing,
and the door to any lawsuits by the widow against the employer is closed. No
life insurance payments, no lawsuits, no settlements out of court. If the
tender of a dead diver is loaded, he gets to take care of the widow and
children, after he gets out of jail for negligent homicide. This would be a
far greater deterrent than a piss test.

But, that will never fly, because it would make people personally
responsible for their actions, and we all know that just cant be.

I agree with you on pilots and such, however. If they fuck up, potentially
hundreds can die. But again, what would have stopped the Exxon Valdez
accident? The skipper was drunk, and there is no legislation to make him
prove he is sober before he assumes command of the ship. There is no way to
guarantee that a pilot is sober either. They or their remains can be tested
after the accident, but then its a little late.

I wonder if the people who perform the lab work on my urine are tested?
I know, for sure, that nurses and doctors are not tested, my brother is a
nurse.
Their Union wont allow it.

And Joe, idiots manufacture themselves. No one made me or allowed me to do
the drugs I did. It was a choice I made. And it was my choice when I quit.
No one made me quit.

And we haven't even *begun* to address the issue of accuracy or false
positive results.

If you guys cant see the problems in this, I am through talking.

Scott

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Citelli" <polarbea@sa*.ne*>
To: <ben@wi*.co*>
Cc: "Scott" <scottk@hc*.co*>; "Trey" <trey@ne*.co*>; "Alton Hall, Jr."
<ahall@da*.co*>; "Techdiver" <techdiver@aquanaut.com>; <klind@al*.ne*>
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2000 4:40 AM
Subject: Re: Dive Master's Wanted


> So in other words, you'd be ok with getting on a plane flown by a pilot
> who has been up for two days prior snorting cocaine because he stopped
> it last night.
>
> I agree with the economics and with the freedom to do as I choose etc.
> etc. but when I rely on someone to do a job, I want to know he is of
> sound mind and body.  What about MY rights?
>
> I don't care about the supermarket clerk, but anyone in a resonsible
> position, (read in care of other peoples safety), should be drug free.
>
> Your logic is the exact reason why when you call information for a
> number, or you go into a department store NO ONE knows their job.  They
> were all too busy frying their brains the night before or did so for so
> many years that the residual effect is permanent.
>
> Nature hands us enough idiots.  We don't need to start manufacturing
> them.
>
> Joe Citelli


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