drug/alcohol testing policy: effective?

"Chip Jones" wrote in message

This guy I know started smoking cannabis in college. He enjoyed it so
much
and so often that he started losing control of the direction his life was
going in. As you might expect, he soon saw falling school grades, low
energy, no motivation, etc., the classic results of habitual pot use. It
was fun (he says), but it was a dead end. To steer his ship down a
straighter, narrower channel, this guy walked into a recruiting office and
enlisted in the Marine Corps.

And you're sure that it was the dope that was the problem and not a symptom?

Somewhere along the way, this guy realized just how damn bad drugs are for
building a person's character. Like every controller I know, this guy
would
tell you that people who make their living in aviation safety related
fields, say pilots who fly under Part 121 or Part 135, or mechanics, or
air
traffic controllers, should be randomly drug tested *often*.

You know how many controllers? Are you saying there's a consensus on this?

It's an air
safety thing. You don't want unmotivated, low-energy, maybe
high-as-a-kite
folks playing around with airplanes that will be carrying passengers. The
problem with drugs is that you can't always know when a person is high, or
when drug use is affecting critical safety skills like judgment or
coordination.

So what? Critical safety skills *are* an issue and *can* be tested. If
that's your point, then drug testing isn't the way to go. You can't always
know lots of things about people. Nor should you. There are lots of highly
motivated people who smoke pot.

No matter what the rate of positive on a random test is among
this group of aviation professionals, the air safety goal has to be zero
tol
erance for drug use.

What about zero tolerance for smoking, drinking and boxing? You OK with
that? Also, while were at it (and I know something about this) the top
cause of brain fade in high pressure environments is personal strife. So,
maybe we should force all these people to keep a diary and randomly check to
make sure they're not lying.


I'd bet a dollar a lot of them are reading this right now but are too
chicken to admit it.

I'll bet you're right on the money, Jim.

More like they're not stupid enough to admit it.

moo