HIS CUP RUNNETH OVER WITH ANNOYANCE

THE NEWSPAPER you are reading has been lovingly compiled by hundreds
of humans who urinated into plastic measuring cups for the privilege
of bringing it to you.

I gather this is not widely known among readers, judging by the
reaction from those I've told. "Why would the L.A. Times care whether
you've smoked pot?" goes the typical response.

It doesn't help with the comprehension that it's not immediately
evident that anyone here actually does.

Yet it's been company policy for at least 18 years that every new hire
excrete on command while a rubber-gloved nurse waits outside with her
ear plastered to the door. Those who test positive for illegal drugs
don't get their promised job, on grounds that someone who can't stay
off the stuff long enough to pass a one-time, advance-notice screening
might have a problem. (And yes, it has happened in the newsroom a
handful of times.) This despite the fact that we generally don't
operate machinery heavier than a coffee pot, aren't likely to sell our
secrets to blackmailing Russkies and are supposed to be at least
theoretically representative of typical Americans.

Because guess what? The typical American -- and just about every
journalist I've ever asked -- has already tried marijuana at least
once before the age of 25, according to the government's National
Survey on Drug Use and Health. What's more, despite 35 years and
billions of dollars' worth of taxpayer-financed propaganda to the
contrary, most of those who've inhaled didn't collapse through the
"gateway" into desperate heroin addiction or "Traffic"-style sex slavery.

George W. Bush turned out all right (at least on paper), as did Al
Gore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Walton, Michael Bloomberg and
millions more.

These complaints are familiar; I've made them several times myself
(for instance, this self-shaming line from 1998: "I didn't get into
this racket so I could submit to insulting urine tests"). I'm generally the
kind of smart-ass who bristles at being told what to do (like registering
for the "Selective" Service at 18, which I selected not to); and for the
last few years I've worked at the libertarian Reason magazine, the kind of
place where senior editors write books called "Saying Yes."

Yet there I was two weeks ago, handing my warm yellow beaker to the
urine analyst ("Your temperature is nice," she said, clearly trying to
soften the blow). So, presented with the lure of an interesting job,
did I abandon my libertarian principles even faster than the Gingrich
revolution?

Well, yes, but it wasn't for lack of trying. First came the bluffing
("Is there a drug test? Because I won't take one.") Then the
bargaining -- I offered to pay more for health insurance, or sign a
sworn affidavit detailing my laughably tame drug history to no avail.

A real punk rocker, or at least a dedicated fan of Mojo Nixon (he of
"I Ain't Gonna Piss in No Jar" fame from the mid-1980s, when drug
testing was still controversial among newspaper employees), would have
played chicken with the human resources department to see who blinked
first.

Instead, I folded like a cheap tent.

Worst of all, I didn't even have the basic decency to fail. As is
infamous among friends who've known me long enough, a single hit of
pot is enough to reduce me to a whimpering fetal crouch for several
incommunicative hours at a time. During my last such tempting of fate,
several years back, my crippled brain could not decipher whether the
trailer for "A Mighty Wind" indicated a comedy or horror film. When it
comes to every substance except red wine and Pacifico, I'm basically a
Mormon.

Which is why, among other things, our milk-slurping pals from Utah are
famously overrepresented in sensitive government jobs that require
higher levels of drug screening, like at the CIA. But do we really
want our spook work handled by guys who blush at PG-13 movies?

What kind of country would we be when most jobs require such ritual
humiliation?

The answer is: The country we already are. Since Ronald Reagan
introduced federal government drug testing in 1986, workplace
screening, egged on by Washington, climbed quickly to about 50% of all
jobs and has remained basically static since then. The republic has
managed to survive.

Like airport security, open-air smoking bans and drunk-driving
checkpoints, drug testing is an insulting annoyance that was met with
much initial grumbling (particularly from journalists), then quickly
became part of the accepted background noise of modern life. We
instinctively compensate for these setbacks by exploring new freedoms
elsewhere, before the buzz-killers find out.

At least that's what I keep telling myself.