A Case for and Against Drug Testing

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
UNIT VIII – CASE STUDY 16-1
The Case For And Against Drug Testing
Columbia Southern University
Professor: Ph.D. Chizoba Madueke (Dr. Zee)
Student: Chi H. Nguyen
Student # 217505

Drug Problems
As per Nationwide Medical Review (n.d.), drug users in United States are not specific case of unemployed people but, at the matter of facts, drug users can be anyone from a politician, a business owner, a doctor, a professor, and a student, to the kind-hearted neighbors. It is also proven that workplace has been used at a wonderful place to minimize the chance of being caught during drugs using. Needless to say, everyone is aware of the bad impacts of drugs abuse and alcohol abuse in the person, the society, and environment. Overall, drugs and alcohol abuse serious affect human’s behaviors, thus, reduce work’s abilities, and create insufficient costs. The problems, moreover, do not exclude any workplace.
Castulon Corp. produces safety electronic systems that alert the hazardous chemicals level. At Castulon Corp., any error during system production may cause serious problems to the machine users. Unluckily, it was obvious that drug abuse exists in the company environment, and may create bad impacts in the business. The questions are: Should Castulon Corp. establish the program? What are the most difficult challenges an organization may have to face in using drug-testing program? Should alcohol abuse be also included into the program?
Drug-Testing Program – Should or Should Not
As per case study (Ivancevich, 2010), Castulon Corp had found few cases of drug abuse within two months. Working in the industry that an error in any production process may create serious problems to the users, Castulon Corp. must prompt consider implementing the drug-testing program. Look at the social side, as mentioned on Nationwide Medical Review (n.d.), drugs control may reduce the Federal annual cost in solving illegal drugs and alcohol abuse problems, including crime cases, courts and prisons expenses. In my opinion, the implementation of drug-testing program at the workplaces may keep the employees awake to understand the possibility of losing his jobs when using illegal drugs thus, may create a positive change on their decisions. Look at the employees’ side, as per Norman Sterling in Castulon Corp. (as cited in Ivancevich, 2010), drug-testing program help to provide a safe workplace for employees and possible to reduce job-related accidents (pp. 532). The prevention of the company in using illegal drugs may assist employees to stay away from drugs abuse, in the other words, to keep them in living healthy. Look at the company’s side, Castulon Corp. will be able to save costs from employees’ compensation claim and increase employees’ productivity (Nationalwide Medical Review, n.d.). In the other hand, as such heavy equipment operation as Castulon Corp., the accidents may not only hurt the drug users but also other workers in the production chain and produce a failure product. The implementation of drug-testing program, therefore, may not only reduce job-related accidents but also ensure to limit the disastrous results to the users of Castulon’s equipment.
In other to implement drug-testing program in limitation of challenges, Castulon Corp. should make a clear policy to state out the purpose of the company to build up drug-free workplace. In my opinion, the policy should include: the benefits of a drug-free workplace to the society, the working environment, the individuals, and the company; the restrictions of the company at the workplace in terms of using illicit drugs; the encouragement to using employee assistance programs to overcome drugs abuse problems. Covering in the policies, Castulon Corp. may use positive discipline approach (Ivancevich, 2010, pp. 523) to first encourage employees to volunteer in doing the drug test and the usage of employees assistance programs as exceptional for having a second chance to stay in the company’s jobs.
Drug-Testing Program – The Challenges
As per Ivancevich (2010), with over 65 percent of the largest workplaces use drug-testing, over 53 million drug tests annual are conducted and about 90 percent of the drug tests are urine samples (pp. 513). The first challenge that an organization has to face is how to conduct the test samples without violate the human right that has been declared on the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Law allows people to protect themselves from unreasonable searches and seizures and thus, allow employers to collect samples only with the employees’ agreement or, probable causes such as after an accident. Employees, who are using drugs face the possibility of being layoffs thus, may use human right to against the testing program. Employees, who are not using drugs may also being annoyed. As per Beverly Shaver in Castulon Corp. (as cited in Ivancevich, 2010), the drug-testing program may violate the spirit of mutual trust between the company and employees (pp. 533). The drug-testing program also involves high costs for implementation, especial in large company as Castulon Corp.
Alcohol Testing, Should It Be Included
As per Ivancevich (2010), alcohol abuse has increased in workplace. Alcohol abuse also reduces employees’ productivity and increases expenses. I agree the argument that alcohol testing is essential for safety-sensitive employees (Ivancevich, 2010, pp. 512) and alcohol testing should be taken depending on business types of the corporations. Taking Castulon Corp. as an example, due to the production require the accuracy, alcohol testing should be taken for workers who are in charge of equipment installation, heavy machine operations, and drivers. However, some other business positions, for example marketing staffs or salesman of beverage companies, drinking ability is an advantage in order to promote company’s products.

References
Nationwide Medical Review (n.d.). America’s Drug Problem. Retrieved from: http://www.drugfreeworkplace.com/employers/drug-free-workplace.php
Ivancevich J. M. (2010). Human resource management (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

References: Nationwide Medical Review (n.d.). America’s Drug Problem. Retrieved from: http://www.drugfreeworkplace.com/employers/drug-free-workplace.php Ivancevich J. M. (2010). Human resource management (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.