On Declining to Pee In A Cup

Last updated on: October 20, 2016 at 2:11 am by Tom Swiss

On Declining to Pee In A Cup 2016-10-20T02:11:11-04:00 Tom Swiss

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I’m pleased to report that my mother has been moved out of the ICU into a stepdown unit. While a long recovery looms, we are looking now at the question of recovery rather than survival. My thanks to everyone who has expressed support for my family in this difficult time. Now, back to the political jeremiads for a bit…

I got my first job in 1985. I was 15, underage, and so it was an under-the-table arrangement, working for a guy who subdivided houses near Towson University (Towson State, at the time) into student apartments. In the three decades since that construction job I’ve gotten paid work as a lifeguard, CPR instructor, movie usher and concessionaire, actor, office assistant and gofer, software developer, writer, musician, massage therapist, and karate teacher — paid very little in most of these fields, but I’ve obtained some compensation through each them.

And at no time have I peed in a cup to prove I was competent to do the job.

My younger friends may be surprised to learn this, but it was not that long ago that the idea of urinating on demand for an employer would have been universally understood to be ridiculous. As recently as 1986 a federal court found that mass urine testing of firefighters without probable cause was a violation of Fourth Amendment protections. It was only as Drug War paranoia and the general trend towards authoritarianism ramped up through the Bush and Clinton (the First) years of the 1990s that companies started boasting about how they subjected their employees to the degradation of chemical drug tests.

It happened that I finished graduate school in 1993, as the trend towards intrusive drug tests was growing. There was an on-line backlash in those days — something called the Great USENET Piss List, a blacklist of companies that invaded employee privacy with urine tests.

I was part of that USENET culture, and a frequent participant in drug policy discussion forums. I made a vow as I entered the workforce: so long as I have the privilege of employment choice, I will use it to push for privacy and dignity. If I have the option, I will not accept employment with a company that performs chemical drug testing without probable cause.

I have no objection to impairment testing in safety-critical areas — that’s the right way to test. But if the only way you can tell if someone is using illegal drugs is via a chemical screen, ipso facto their drug use is not significantly affecting their job performance. Chemical tests are also subject to a high false-positive rate, which can have serious implications. And since the most harmless illegal drug, cannabis, is the only most easily tested for, chemical tests often have the result of encouraging drug users to substitute harder, less detectable drugs. (For example I once knew a fellow in the military who wouldn’t use cannabis on a weekend leave because he was subject to testing — instead, he’d take LSD, which is much less detectable.)

Given the existence of impairment testing it seems the only reason for employers to piss test employees is either laziness (“everyone else is doing it”) or employee intimidation — it’s harder to organize for better wages or working conditions once you’ve psychologically conceded control over your body to an employer.

Americans may also be surprised that widespread drug testing of employees without reasonable suspicion is forbidden in Canada. Canada’s Supreme Court found that random testing without justificaiton “has been overwhelmingly rejected by arbitrators as an unjustified affront to the dignity and privacy of employees.” Yet somehow, Canadian workplaces have not been overrun with stoners.

As cannabis use becomes legal in more places under more circumstances here in the U.S., it’s time for a fresh look at the issue. A few years ago an employer here in Maryland might conclude that a person who failed a drug screen had violated the law and have some justification in choosing not to hire a “criminal”; but with cannabis now legal in DC, it may mean only that they paid a perfectly law-abiding visit to our nation’s capital. Or it may mean they are using cannabis medicinally and legally in a manner that is none of the employer’s business.

I bring this up because I am on the lookout for ways to expand my bodywork therapy practice. One appealing possibility is to pick up one or two days a week working at a wellness center — not as lucrative as seeing my own clients on a session-per-session basis, but possibly a more steady income stream. I recently fired off a few resumes and got an interview — including a “practical”, a sort of audition massage — at a local center. They were pleased, I was pleased, I got an offer letter.. And then I sat down to read their employee handbook.

Unfortunately, despite the references I gave them, despite giving a great “practical” to one of their managers, despite the fact that anyone showing up to work as a massage therapist impaired by drugs would be discovered as soon as they put their hands on a client, these folks have a policy that demands that I pee in a cup to prove I am worthy to work for them.

I respectfully and regretfully decline. How can I help clients create better relationships with their bodies when I’m allowing an employer to poke invasively into my own? It seems to me that those of us who work in wellness have a special duty to reject this unscientific and unethical practice.

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