Guidance from Employment Law guru's

Comms69

James1968 wrote: »

The one thing that definately does skew drugs tests is the consumption of seeded bread products where poppy seeds have been used due to having no sesame seeds available.

Anyway, the op hasn't been back to answer the 2 questions posed in post 2.

Indeed; both of which are extremely relevant


(if I say so myself)

aife

garth549 wrote: »

You might think it doesn't affect your performance at work but I can guarantee you it does. My sister's company used to employ 2 people who smoked cannabis which they knew about and tolerated at first.

It soon became clear they were in a daze half the time without realising and they were making loads of mistakes.

I wouldn't want someone who got stoned at the weekends working for me. Sorry.

If they were 'in a daze' and 'making loads of mistakes' then that would be grounds for taking action in itself.
People need to think through the implications of this - lots of people occasionally use recreational substances without it affecting their functioning at work. Cannabis can stay in the system for weeks , sack somebody who might be a perfectly good worker because they shared a joint at the weekend you could be losing a good worker and ruining someone's life
And by opening the door to routine testing we will end up wit hamerican type practices - people going for shelf stacking jobs at walmart etc,. are subjected to observed urine tests , I think that's a massive intrusion
Drug/ alcohol testing is fair enough in safety critical jobs , but if you're not a pilot or a surgeon ... render unto caesar that which is caesar's.. your employer doesn't own you (not yet anyway)

Exodi

Erm... can we not forget that Cannabis is illegal in the UK?

Whether you argue 'I only break the law on weekends though' is almost irrelevant if your contract states that drug tests are performed and your employment hinges on the results.

Not many jobs carry out random drug checks, if smoking joints on the weekend is more important to you than this job then just get another?

aife wrote: »

Cannabis can stay in the system for weeks , sack somebody who might be a perfectly good worker because they shared a joint at the weekend you could be losing a good worker and ruining someone's life

I'd argue they ruined their own lives by taking drugs when they were aware their employer performs random drug checks?

Brynsam

You don't need to be an employment law guru, OP, to google on your own question and get plenty of helpful, well informed and recent articles. See https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/introducing-a-drug-and-alcohol-testing-policy-what-employers-need-to-know/ which gives an excellent summary of the issues facing an employer who wants to introduce such tests. That should give you a very good idea of what your 'rights' are as an employee.

Savvy_Sue

aife wrote: »

shelf stacking jobs at walmart etc,

There's a certain amount of health and safety critical stuff involved in shelf stacking though ...

Gavin83

garth549 wrote: »

I wouldn't want someone who got stoned at the weekends working for me. Sorry.

There's a good possibility that you'd never know.

If you work for a company of any reasonable size it's extremely likely they'd be at least one drug user. I watched a TV show last night that had a heroin addict on it who was holding down a well paid job. I doubt his colleagues knew.

aife wrote: »

Drug/ alcohol testing is fair enough in safety critical jobs , but if you're not a pilot or a surgeon ... render unto caesar that which is caesar's.. your employer doesn't own you (not yet anyway)

I used to know a surgeon who smoked cannabis and took much harder drugs as well. I knew him through a friend who was a nurse who claimed drug use in the medical profession was rife. Given the amount of drug using nurses/doctors who associated with us I'm inclined to believe her.

Never been friends with a pilot though.