drug/alcohol testing policy: effective?

"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
. ..
[...]
Back in my younger years, I quit smoking pot because I got a job that did
random drug testing.

Did you quit smoking pot because they were doing drug testing? Or because
the job was incompatible with smoking pot?

The former is a pretty idiotic approach to the issue, but the latter seems
more consistent with what you wrote about smoking pot and flying, and does
not invoke drug testing as a solution.

[...]
Testing kits aren't "prohibitively expensive" as your buddy says.
Twenty-five people can be tested for about $250.00. That may be
"expensive" depending on how many you must do but I would not put it in
the "prohibitively expensive" category.

$10/person isn't too bad for a company with 25 people to test. But there
are plenty of one-man operations that are also required to undergo drug
testing (they contract with a testing company, who randomly selects from
their "clients" to determine who will be tested). I admit, I don't know
what the cost is, but I can easily imagine that it's prohibitive at small
scales.

Either way, the cost of NOT doing pre, post and interim drug screening
would be much higher than I'm willing to pay. Too damn many people are
like I used to be.

IMHO, if a person is sober on the job, it doesn't matter what they are doing
off the job. Drug testing does not distinguish between the two, and
discriminates against people simply because of their lifestyle.

Maybe if I thought that drug testing was really being done out of a genuine
concern for people's safety, I'd feel differently. But I'm not convinced
that drug testing enhances safety all that much, and it's clear that the
primary push for drug testing is being done by the people who stand to make
lots of money doing it (as with various security regulations and similar
social expenditures).

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
. ..
[...]
Back in my younger years, I quit smoking pot because I got a job that did
random drug testing.

Did you quit smoking pot because they were doing drug testing? Or because
the job was incompatible with smoking pot?

I quit ONLY because of testing. NO other reason. At the time, I was a
young, stupid, pot-smokin', womanizin', party-eight-nights-a-week, and
livin' for the weekend kinda guy. I had an opportunity to double my income
and all I had to do was quit one of those things. DEAL!

During my employment (which involved shift work and long, lonely hours in a
high-tech control room) I stepped outside to take just two little puffs of
pot. I was scared **itless the rest of the night and never did it again.

So, it was only later on in my employment that I found that smoking pot and
being in control of high pressure narural gas lines was a Really Stupid,
incompatible thing to do.

The former is a pretty idiotic approach to the issue,

Quitting something that is bad for you because of rules that were imposed on
me was a bad idea? I'd bet a whole dollar that there's a jillion former
pot-heads flying today who quit because of drug testing.

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

IMHO, if a person is sober on the job, it doesn't matter what they are
doing off the job. Drug testing does not distinguish between the two, and
discriminates against people simply because of their lifestyle.

A held that stance years ago. Now I realize that more-than-occaisional drug
use is a sever character flaw and not a flaw I want in a Captain or FO.

Maybe if I thought that drug testing was really being done out of a
genuine concern for people's safety, I'd feel differently. But I'm not
convinced that drug testing enhances safety all that much, and it's clear
that the primary push for drug testing is being done by the people who
stand to make lots of money doing it (as with various security regulations
and similar social expenditures).

Then we will agree to disagree.


--
Jim Fisher

"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
news
Quitting something that is bad for you because of rules that were imposed
on me was a bad idea?

Yes. A non-idiotic approach to the issue would be to base one's decision on
quitting on real facts, not some economically-motivated rule-making.

I'd bet a whole dollar that there's a jillion former pot-heads flying
today who quit because of drug testing.

A jillion you say? Uh, right. Whatever. I'd bet a lot more than a dollar
that the number is well below that, and in any case I'm not really concerned
about pot-heads flying, as long as they aren't under the influence while
flying. What do I care whether they quit or not?

A held that stance years ago. Now I realize that more-than-occaisional
drug use is a sever character flaw and not a flaw I want in a Captain or
FO.

I disagree that even "more-than-occasional drug use" is necessarily a
problem, as long as that drug use doesn't occur when it would interfere with
a person's obligations. But nevertheless, your qualification of
"more-than-occasional drug use" is not observed by drug testing. Even
occasional users will get strung up by it.

Then we will agree to disagree.

Indeed.

Pete

"Peter Duniho"
"Jim Fisher" wrote in message

Comment (and pardon the top post):

The type of exchange usually happens when you mix a government-as-nanny
liberal with a right (correct) thinking libertarian. The former uses some
personal experience and some shoddy reasoning to conclude that any
recreational drug use "is bad for you" and "more-than-occaisional drug use
is a sever character flaw". The proposed solution is to invade the privacy
of everyone. However, as the other poster correctly implies, the evidence
that recreational drug use away from the job is related to accidents is
lacking. If and when there is hard data on this, meaning lives are being
endangered (on the job), then most people would agree that government
intervention is necessary. There are other "character flaws", like a
penchant for risk-taking, that should be of more concern than recreational
drug use. And how about overly religious pilots? Remember that?

moo

Quitting something that is bad for you because of rules that were imposed
on me was a bad idea?

Yes. A non-idiotic approach to the issue would be to base one's decision
on quitting on real facts, not some economically-motivated rule-making.

I'd bet a whole dollar that there's a jillion former pot-heads flying
today who quit because of drug testing.

A jillion you say? Uh, right. Whatever. I'd bet a lot more than a
dollar that the number is well below that, and in any case I'm not really
concerned about pot-heads flying, as long as they aren't under the
influence while flying. What do I care whether they quit or not?

A held that stance years ago. Now I realize that more-than-occaisional
drug use is a sever character flaw and not a flaw I want in a Captain or
FO.

I disagree that even "more-than-occasional drug use" is necessarily a
problem, as long as that drug use doesn't occur when it would interfere
with a person's obligations. But nevertheless, your qualification of
"more-than-occasional drug use" is not observed by drug testing. Even
occasional users will get strung up by it.

Then we will agree to disagree.

Indeed.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
news
Quitting something that is bad for you because of rules that were imposed
on me was a bad idea?

Yes. A non-idiotic approach to the issue would be to base one's decision
on quitting on real facts, not some economically-motivated rule-making.

You might be surprised that most of us are motivated by money. Works for
me, anyway.

Besides, I didn't know I was an idiot at the time. Thought I was pudy
smart, actually.

I'm not really concerned about pot-heads flying, as long as they aren't
under the influence while flying. What do I care whether they quit or
not?

Never smoked the stuff, have ya? Good for you, man. If you *did* smoke it,
you'd know that pot (and lots of other stuff) affects you during and well
after partaking of it. Tell your name to just about any long-term pot
smoker. Even if 's not stoned, he won't remember it next time he meets you.

Do I really have to explain the dangers of short-term memory loss to a
pilot, Bill, er, Roger, er, glancing at header oh yeah, Pete? Not to
mention the fact that a commercial pilot who performs an illegal act on a
habitual basis has no place in the cockpit, man!


--
Jim Fisher

"Peter Duniho" wrote


I'm not really concerned
about pot-heads flying, as long as they aren't under the influence while
flying.

I disagree that even "more-than-occasional drug use" is necessarily a
problem, as long as that drug use doesn't occur when it would interfere
with
a person's obligations.

Pete

I believe you are in one of two circumstances. 1), you are the user that
only uses while you are not flying, or 2), you have never been a user and
are totally clueless.

Using pot, in the vast majority of users, becomes more important than almost
anything. While you claim that use while not flying does no harm, I would
claim that many things are neglected. Some things like sleep, proper diet,
studying and setting up the flight plan, learning more about the art of
flight, and so on.

I do have an opinion which of these two camps you fall into.
--
Jim in NC

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
news
Quitting something that is bad for you because of rules that were
imposed
on me was a bad idea?

Yes. A non-idiotic approach to the issue would be to base one's decision
on
quitting on real facts, not some economically-motivated rule-making.


FACT: If you get popped on a random drug test, you are unemployed, and
likely unemployable. That seems like about as real a fact as there can
be...

Chip, ZTL

"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
news [snipped]

Quitting something that is bad for you because of rules that were imposed
on
me was a bad idea? I'd bet a whole dollar that there's a jillion former
pot-heads flying today who quit because of drug testing.

I'll betcha there are a bunch of ex-pothead controllers out there too who
quit for the same reasons. I'm pretty close to one of them, but he'd never
admit his past sins on a public forum for fear of losing his federal job.
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. The Marines drug test with a zero-tolerance
policy. The he used his Marine Corps experience to get an FAA job as a
controller. The FAA drug tests too, with a zero-tolerance policy.

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*. 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. 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.

Random testing in the field of professional aviation is a necessary evil. I
firmly believe that even if we completely legalize pot someday for the
masses, we will still have to maintain a zero-tolerance random drug testing
policy or else air safety will suffer.


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.

Chip, ZTL

"Chip Jones" wrote in message
k.net...
[...]
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.

Those are the classic results of ANY lifestyle abuse. Any number of other
things can have the exact same result. Computer games, pornography, and
even scientific research have all been known to cause the exact same kind of
"drop out" behavior. Last I checked, none of those things are disallowed
for pilots.

More importantly, there is absolutely no evidence that *generally* habitual
pot use leads to the things you describe. Certain individuals are
susceptible to falling into a rut like that, but lots of habitual pot users
have no such problems, just as lots of habitual computer gamers, scientists,
and porn aficionados have no such problems.

You are trying to extrapolate to all people based on your knowledge of a
single individual. There's just no basis for that kind of extrapolation,
and it would be absurd to make rules based on a single individual.

[...]
Somewhere along the way, this guy realized just how damn bad drugs are for
building a person's character.

Drugs aren't meant to build character. Why would you expect them to be?
And more importantly, there are plenty of other legal activities that are
similarly not useful for "building a person's character". Why should
everything a person does be good for building a person's character, and what
possible justification does our government have for mandating that a person
engage only in things that are good for building 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*. It's an air
safety thing.

It's not a safety thing. It's a money thing. Even before drug testing,
it's a pretty sure bet that more pilots flew while drunk than while high on
pot. And yet, what testing is being sold? Drug testing.

If it were really a safety thing, the focus would be on alcohol abuse.

You don't want unmotivated, low-energy, maybe high-as-a-kite
folks playing around with airplanes that will be carrying passengers.

I don't want drunk pilots playing around with airplanes that will be
carrying passengers either. But no one seems to be cracking down on that.

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.

This is true of the drug known as alcohol as well.

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.

Drug use while flying, yes. Drug use generally? No...it has nothing to do
with air safety whatsoever. Drug testing does not distinguish between the
two.

Random testing in the field of professional aviation is a necessary evil.
I
firmly believe that even if we completely legalize pot someday for the
masses, we will still have to maintain a zero-tolerance random drug
testing
policy or else air safety will suffer.

There is absolutely no evidence to support your theory, and plenty of
evidence in contrary to it.

Pete

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 18:25:36 GMT, "Chip Jones"
wrote in
t::

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.

You're probably right about detecting impaired judgment, but physical
coordination can be measured:
http://isc.temple.edu/pe204/HandCorrelationReport.htm