I understand the desire to regulate illegal behavior; however as a laboratory technologist who sees drug testing, I believe this is a costly mistake. The cost associated with random testing includes having employees to monitor collection of the specimens (usually urine), chain of custody procedures (paperwork), transportation of specimens, and actual testing. You can look at the report on mandatory drug testing of all high school athletes in Texas that was enacted by the Legislature. The few individuals identified were very small compared to what it is costing us to do all that testing. If an individual is on parole for drug abuse, they are already being monitored by the parole department, so why repeat this expense? The cost for this will easily exceed the added benefits. If positive what would we do? Lock them up and take away their children and who pays then? Prevention and treatment are a more useful tool.
Anonymous User March 26, 2009
at 11:49am
I understand the desire to regulate illegal behavior; however as a laboratory technologist who sees drug testing, I believe this is a costly mistake. The cost associated with random testing includes having employees to monitor collection of the specimens (usually urine), chain of custody procedures (paperwork), transportation of specimens, and actual testing. You can look at the report on mandatory drug testing of all high school athletes in Texas that was enacted by the Legislature. The few individuals identified were very small compared to what it is costing us to do all that testing. If an individual is on parole for drug abuse, they are already being monitored by the parole department, so why repeat this expense? The cost for this will easily exceed the added benefits. If positive what would we do? Lock them up and take away their children and who pays then? Prevention and treatment are a more useful tool.