01 January 2008
Drugs may be prohibited, banned, or prescribed, and some can be bought over the counter. What makes it interesting is the fact that drugs can be abused and can be a cause for conflict. Drug policies in the guise of curbing the battle both in government and private entities can do more harm than good. A policy which would require students and employees to undergo drug test can have social and psychological implications. How do you really pass a drug test? Does passing a drug test guarantee security in school and work tenure? Do these tests which may include hair test, urine test, to name a few, prevent or impede drug use?
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30 November 2007
Everyone has a stake in ending the war on drugs. Whether you’re a parent concerned about protecting children from drug-related harm, a social justice advocate worried about racially disproportionate incarceration rates, an environmentalist seeking to protect the Amazon rainforest or a fiscally conservative taxpayer you have a stake in ending the drug war. U.S. federal, state and local governments have spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make America “drug-free.” Yet heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other illicit drugs are cheaper, purer and easier to get than ever before. Nearly half a million people are behind bars on drug charges - more than all of western Europe (with a bigger population) incarcerates for all offenses. The war on drugs has become a war on families, a war on public health and a war on our constitutional rights.
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30 November 2007
In 1986, the Reagan administration began to heavily promote drug testing in the workplace as part of the escalating War on Drugs. Since then, drug testing has proliferated from safety-sensitive jobs to non-safety sensitive jobs to pre-employment job testing to suspicionless drug testing of public high school students to mandatory drug testing of applicants for public benefits. Drug testing is also a near universal feature of the criminal justice system in the United States, with most probationers and parolees required to undergo drug testing regardless of the nature of their underlying offense or history of drug use.
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30 November 2007
In April, my 85 year old mother-part blind, two hearing aids, two heart attacks and 17 years of drug war imprisonment of her only son G. Patrick Callahan behind her- tested positive with an ION Detector for illegal drugs at a federal prison in Seagonville, TX. My sisters were processed, but my mother was too deaf to understand that she was being told to leave the federal premises entirely. She’s also too old to put up with that crap, and she dissolved emotionally. Hunched over, with her head buried in her hands, she sobbed and wandered alone into the parking lot.
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30 November 2007
Tyrone Brown, 33, is now serving a life sentence for testing positive for marijuana while on probation for a $2 holdup he committed when he was 17. Brown’s harsh sentence received national attention after his story appeared in the Dallas Morning News and on the TV show 20/20.
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07 July 2006
As a result of testing positive in May 2006 while on probation, California medical marijuana patient Rachel Jones* was charged with violating her probation conditions. Ignoring Rachel’s doctor’s recommendation, which established her status as a qualified patient, her probation officer recommended jail time.
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10 January 2006
The Burbank City Council will decide tonight whether to pursue adoption of a drug-testing policy for elected officials—a month after former Councilwoman Stacey Jo Murphy pleaded guilty to cocaine possession.
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07 December 2005
In an ideal world government would have no say in the hiring practices of private companies, so such an issue would never arise. But we live in the world we live in, so perhaps it is helpful that the California Supreme Court has taken the case of Gary Ross, a former computer systems administrator who was fired for testing positive for marijuana, even though he was using it to alleviate chronic back pain with the approval of a physician, which is legal under the Compassionate Use Act approved by voters in 1996 and has never been challenged or invalidated in court.
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27 September 2005
Irvin Rosenfeld, the South Florida stockbroker who gained national attention for his fight to freely use marijuana as medicine, has run into resistance from one of the nation’s top sailing events for the disabled and expects to be barred from next year’s event.
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17 September 2005
The Oregon Supreme Court has agreed to review Washburn v. Columbia Forest Products, Inc., a case that will clarify how much protection the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act (OMMA) affords workers. Millworker Robert Washburn of Klamath Falls got a card through the state program in 1999 after a doctor approved his marijuana use for pain-related insomnia. Washburn never showed signs of impairment on the job, but was fired in 2001 after his urine tested positive for marijuana metabolites. Washburn sued for reinstatement and back pay. A Multnomah County Circuit Court judge ruled against him, citing a clause in OMMA releasing employers from any obligation to accommodate "use of medical marijuana in any workplace."
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31 August 2005
The seven police officers swore they didn’t use cocaine, yet their hair tested positive for the drug.
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13 May 2005
A life like prosthetic penis called the Whizzinator and other products promising to help illegal drug users pass urine test provoked US lawmakers on Wednesday to take legal action and subpoenas of manufacturers.
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13 February 2005
Fired city employee Logan Shawn Dake said he’s done nothing wrong by using medical marijuana during his off hours and he just wants to get back to caring for lawns in city parks and cemeteries.
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09 February 2005
One look at the Cozart RapiScan, a self-proclaimed complete "on-site oral fluid drugs of abuse diagnostic system," and it’s obvious: This isn’t your parents’ drug test. Gone are the golden days of the plastic collection cup.
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30 June 2004
Two years after approving the use of drug-sniffing dogs, Broward County schools may have another narcotic-fighting weapon: an aerosol spray that detects residue on school desks or backpacks, similar to bomb-detection equipment used in airports.
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