40 Isn't all this worth the trouble, though, in order to reduce accident risks and health care costs? (Marijuana testing)
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This article is from the Hemp / Cannabis / Marijuana FAQ, by Brian S. Julin verdant@twain.ucs.umass.edu with numerous contributions by others.
40 Isn't all this worth the trouble, though, in order to reduce accident risks and health care costs? (Marijuana testing)
Everyone knows that marijuana users are bad employees,
right? Wrong -- or at least someone forgot to tell the
millions of hard working marijuana smokers that. Drug
testing companies will hand you piles of statistics which
they say prove marijuana use costs you money. The truth is
there are just as many studies which show that marijuana
users are more successful, use less health care, and produce
more than non-users. Before you buy into workplace drug
testing, make sure you get the other side of the story.
In the 1980's, the Bush administration went to great lengths
to promote drug testing. In fact, George Bush estimated the
cost of drug use at over 60 billion dollars a year, based on
a study which supposedly showed that persons who had used
marijuana at some time during their life were less
successful. The very same study could be used to show that
current, heavy users of marijuana and other illegal drugs
were actually more successful. Something is a bit fishy
here, and when you add to that the fact that several former
heads of the DEA and former Drug Czars now own or work in
the urinalysis industry, this whole scene begins to smell a
bit funny.
``Social Behavior, Public Policy, and Non-harmful Drug Use'' by
Charles Winick in ``The Milbank Quarterly'' Vol. 69 Iss. 3 pp.
437-459. ed. published for the Milbank Memorial Fund Cambridge
University Press New York, NY, 1991.
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