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Drug Testing Isn't Helping Out, Any Ideas?

8K views 82 replies 39 participants last post by  angus242 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Howdy Yall. My name is Kelly Truman, I run a company here in Tennessee doing drywalling. I've had a lot of trouble finding workers that are not high on these new fake pot things sold in the gas stations. We try to drug test but it won't come up. I found a bag of Red Lion Incense at one of our job sites and hid it away until I got home only to come to find out this stuff looks like marijuana but it's legal? I don't understand this and I need figure out a way to keep away from not hiring these people due to insurance and safety reasons...
:censored:
 
#33 ·
I have seen the effects of long term heavy pot use on people. At the very least it changes perception dramatically. It causes the user to overlook things he would not ordinarily overlook, I'm not just talking about short term memory loss either. At worst it plays hell on the lungs, I knew a life long pot smoker who never smoked tobacco who had to have his lungs scraped out at 60 years of age so he could breathe. So toke up Mofo's, enjoy
 
#34 ·
Couldn't agree more. I'm amazed at how many pot smokers are over here in the US. It's like every person I meet smokes it. The ones I'm close friends with really do believe that it does not affect them in any way or form. They couldn't be anymore wrong. One of them I know is about to get 5 years for breaking his parole by smoking the stuff as soon as he come out of jail. He really believed he won't get caught on his drug tests :blink:
 
#36 ·
To the op's point, if spice is legal, and they are not using it on the job, there is nothing he can test for. The testing of marijuana is flawed as it cannot specify as to weather the stuff was used on the clock or not. However, since it is an illegal substance, the courts decided it was an acceptable method... Sobeit.

Certainly am not encouraging smoking pot. Those who partake, know there is an unknown about the long term health effects (the lung thing is a given, I am more concerned about the effects on the brain). However, there are many pot smokers who are passionate about their work, take pride in their family, community and be all around good people.

Heck, most of us are dazed and confused with or without the weed.
 
#37 · (Edited)
Drugs don't need to be the criteria. Thank God most of us are not union, and we can grow and develop the ideals and expectations of our organizations as we see fit.

If performance doesn't meet your levels, termination is always a simple recourse.

You do not have to explain yourself, or feel you are doing wrong to weed out (pardon the pun) those people accepting your money, but not giving you the desired work you have to have in return.
 
#41 ·
I'll take a stoner over a tweaker or a drunk any day. Tweakers will rip you off then help you look for it or just run around in circles, and i've known too many boozers that can't make it till lunch w/out drinking if they can make it in at all. One drunk I had the pleasure of working with needed no less than 8-24oz. Steelies to get through the day... trashed EVERY DAY!

I drink too much (after work) and I smoke on occasion, done some of my best work stoned out of my mind. I actually was told by a former employer once to start smoking again after I quit for a while and began making huge expensive mistakes for some reason. He actually confronted me and asked if I was on drugs... I told him I had quit, he said start again cuz he couldn't afford my mistakes.

I could go on autopilot when I was baked, didn't need to think about it at all, I couldn't think right unless I was blazed. Anymore it just puts me to sleep, I take a puff and i'll be sleeping in the truck in an hour.
 
#51 ·
I'll take a stoner over a tweaker or a drunk any day. Tweakers will rip you off then help you look for it or just run around in circles, and i've known too many boozers that can't make it till lunch w/out drinking if they can make it in at all. One drunk I had the pleasure of working with needed no less than 8-24oz. Steelies to get through the day... trashed EVERY DAY! I drink too much (after work) and I smoke on occasion, done some of my best work stoned out of my mind..
I'm with you . In my area crackheads are the worst , then IMO the drunks . I mean the real alcoholics . A guy having a hangover once or twice a month isn't a killer but the ones that are hungover every day are useless to me .
Weed smokers never gave me any trouble . Don't want it on the job though .
I'm suprised the OPs employees are resorting to using what I would call fake drugs . Has to be really bad for your health even short term.

I know a bunch of union guys that smoke weed and they all use fake piss and handwarmers to pass their randoms .I'm talking longterm journeyman and master electricians and a few steam fitters in their mid 40s. These guys are very good at what they do and all have wifes , kids , houses ect . Great guys . They've told me they have co-workers who won't work on jobsites that have random UAs . They stay employed but don't move up very far in the company .

Fake weed and bath salts pretending to be cocaine ? Damn I think I'd feel better if they were using the real thing . I wouldn't put that **** into my body .
 
#50 ·
Heavens to Betsy, there must be a low rep for contractors if homey was trying to pimp spice here. I could see promoting this at younghipcats.com or something, but here? Talk about barking up the wrong tree.

Anyways, not all pot smokers are stoners, and we all have our own definition of top notch guys. Always enjoy the banter, even if my "voice of reason" isn't recognized.
 
#53 ·
Thanks Mike.

I think drug testing is being used to get rid of employees for financial reasons. Let's say a mid level manager needs to go..."Let's get rid of Ned, you know the guy who smokes weed" no unemployment, might forfeit certain benefits...etc.".

If you don't like Ned, fine, man-up give an official reason. But a random drug test....B.S.

As for legalization, not yet. There is a lot of things that need to be addressed before even working out a policy.
 
#54 ·
It's amazing how many drug test were given back when I worked for the union. It wasn't the union that required it, it was the great big GC's like Mortenson who DEMANDED it. There jobsites are like little cities and they have all sorts of laws etc. Just dealing with them was very expensive.

Mike
 
#59 ·
I see some people think it's no ones business what they do on their own time. Some think differently. Let me tell you how it is with my company. You work for me I'm going to tell you what to wear. (Usually whites) I'm going to tell you to be clean shaven, or at least well groomed. If I think your cologne is too strong I'll tell you about that too. I'm going to tell you what yu can say. (No swearing) I'm pretty much going to have my nose in all of your business. And yeah what you do at home matters too. Go to jail. Better hope I don't see you in the paper. I expect my guys to represent my company, on and off the clock. everything is my business.
 
#69 ·
Fascinating thread.

I wonder haw many people here that would rail about gov. regulations and intrusion are getting high and mighty on weed smoking. I'm not talking about on the job but off the clock. And I am talking specifically about weed.

Mike some folks don't do it cause they need to but just because they enjoy it.

You can rest your case on it's illegality but that is pretty flimsy in my book considering our history with prohibition and the amount of damage liqueur and tobacco cause in the population.

The ins. aspect is the argument against that makes the most sense to me, the rest, not so much. Certainly not from anyone that drinks.
 
#74 ·
Like I indicated much earlier, you can do it all you want that's fine by me. If you want to compare my wife and I having a glass of wine together to smoking pot than go ahead...compare it, agree with it, disagree with it, or anything else you can conjure up.

Life is about decisions and in the end we have to live wih a lifetime of decisions. I think illegal drugs are clear stupid and it's a poor decision but I don't have to live with your decisions I just have to live with my own. If people think they can live a fruitfull life by altering there mind with illegal drugs than all I can say is good luck because I feel you will need it.
 
#70 ·
My best buddy and I used to be big pot heads during and right after high school. Now only 6 years later after I stopped and he continued, you can take a look at where our different life paths have taken us.

We both had nearly the exact same up bringing, same friends, and same party habits. What could be the reason for this?

Don't get me wrong, I used to really enjoy it. Sometimes I still think about doing it but now I get "high" in other ways. To those who think you do your best work on it, you wouldn't think that if you weren't stoned.

Now in my case, if you ever step foot on my jobsite under the influence, there will be consequences for those actions.
 
#71 · (Edited)
You can be for drugs or against, and like Cletus you may still be missing the OP's point.

He doesn't want to invent a new drug test. And he definitely does not want to hire druggies. His mind is made up. No drugs on his job. Now he just needs something better than ineffective testing to 'weed' them out.

His question was about how to hire people who don't do drugs.
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Of course, if the truth be known, since he has not answered even one time in this entire thread, I think we can assume the intent of the original post was really only to advertise his site, and the fact that you can get his stuff at any gas station.

AND, did he not very cleverly let all of us know we can run to that site and find stuff that cannot be detected?

See, this is why I couldn't be a mod. I would delete that site reference........ ESPECIALLY from a first-time poster.
 
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#76 ·
Legal Illegal doesn't matter. Using on the job and during working hours is a no-no. What one does after work on their own time that doesn't affect their work. Is no ones business.

And BTW if you drink you are a drug user. Don't try and minimalize that one with me. :thumbsup:
 
#81 ·
You guys are beating a dead horse trying to rationalize illegal drug use. I'm fine with that smoke all the pot you want, grow a 100 acres of it and produce it by the bale if that turns your crank. I have certain priorities in my life and pot is not on the list. I don't care about Kennedy, prohibition, what is and what isn't......I really don't, you talking to the wrong guy here.

My opinion is this, pot and illegal drug use.......and the people who use it will have no part in my life or in my business. That's my choice and I don't care if you like it or not.

Beyond this point, and this is my opinion, I think most people who do these are like immature children occupying an adult body. I think they are a low caliber of people and I certainly don't want them and there lame reasoning near my children.

But make no mistake, I don't think they are bad people, I just think they are people with serious issues and need help.

Mike
 
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