DRUG TESTING BIASED, HYPOCRITICAL

Editors:

Bibb County is taking an already bad policy and making it worse by
firing employees who test positive for drugs. Few Americans are aware of
the limitations of drug testing, limitations which drug testing profiteers
don't readily volunteer. Urinalysis is virtually useless when it comes to
detecting hard drugs. As such it can have the counterproductive effect of
encouraging hard drug use when forced upon smokers of relatively harmless
marijuana.

The shortcomings of hair testing are more sinister. Dark-haired individuals
are more likely to test positive when hair tests are used, while
fair-haired drug users have a good chance of escaping detection. This
inherent racial bias is reason enough to avoid using hair tests, especially
in light of the fact that blacks already bear the brunt of anti-drug
enforcement.

Employees should be judged on their job performance, not the contents of
their hair or urine. The most unproductive employees I've ever worked with
are alcoholics who come to work hung over, not those who smoke the
occasional joint on weekends. Of course, it's perfectly legal to destroy
one's health with alcohol, so I imagine the "tough on drugs" public
administrators in Bibb County are not concerned with the hypocrisy of drug
testing, nor the impact it will have on productivity.

Robert Sharpe Students for Sensible Drug Policy George Washington University