Drug testing at work: issues and perspectives

Over the past two decades there has been a significant rise in the number of employers requiring their staff or prospective staff members to undergo testing to determine whether they have been taking illicit drugs. Such testing usually takes place within the framework of broad employee-assistance programs and is underpinned by the wish to ensure public safety and corporate security, as well as achieving a "drug-free workplace" by helping staff who have drug-use-related problems. By whatever means these tests are conducted, though, issues of privacy raise a question mark against whether this is truly an area in which the interests of collective security should always override individual civil liberties.