Job weed tests ridiculous

JAMAICAN EMPLOYERS seem to think they are running a daycare or employing people who don’t have the capacity to be responsible. I can’t quite fathom why so many of them insist on having people do drug tests to determine their suitability for usually low-skill and low-paying jobs.

Where do they get off thinking it is okay to deny someone employment because they smoked weed? Should the concern not be its use at work, though that in itself is almost as ridiculous as the preemployment drug test?

Earlier this month, it was reported in this paper, on December 2, 2018, that young men from the inner city are missing out on job opportunities because they are testing positive for marijuana. According to Orville Simmonds of the Citizen Security & Justice Programme (CSJP) in the Ministry of National Security, the decriminalisation of marijuana in February 2015 was not properly done, as the authorities failed to tell people of the dangers of smoking weed.

Truthfully, most Jamaicans are quite aware of the effects and know very well how to manage its use. I didn’t grow up in a home where weed smoking happened, but, as a child, I was knowledgeable about being careful where and who you buy weed from, how to avoid purchasing and consuming ‘seasoned weed’, and knowing your limit, though I had no intention to smoke. I was also privy to many lessons from my classmates who sometimes made weed tea to help them with studying.

Simmonds says our youngsters “are impeding their prospects for employment in more ways than one”. He suggested: “We need to decide, as a country, how we are going to deal with youngsters smoking a little thing while giving up their chance to be employed.”

REAL PROBLEM

It’s always so shocking how resigned we are in our bias and conservative ways that we often fail to see the real problem people face. The problem here is not that adults are smoking weed. It is that they are being tested and denied employment as a result.

Why are they being tested? What is the utility of determining if someone has been under the influence when they’re not at work, not operating a machine, not engaging customers or clients? How does the weed smoked prior to being employed pose any harm to the individual or a threat to the business?

It’s really disheartening to learn about the myriad ways in which poor people are being abused. Clearly, changing the law alone is not enough, because poor men from lowincome communities are still being discriminated against for their recreational use of marijuana. It’s as if people with power have come to a consensus that since they aren’t being locked up again, they’ll harass them and disenfranchise them economically simply because they smoke weed “day in, day out, morning, noon, and night”.

I’d like to believe that the vast majority of these youngsters are responsible enough to know they shouldn’t smoke weed at work – especially for those operating dangerous equipment/machines in the same way youngster who use recreational drugs like mushroom, molly, Ecstasy, and lean (who aren’t subjected to a drug test for their office work) know they shouldn’t take them at work.

Employers should put an end to pre-employment drug tests. It seems as unnecessary as a mandatory HIV test.

The ‘concern’ about weed smoking is as misplaced as forcing men to remove piercings before coming to work.

Divorce the habit of denying people jobs because they test positive for weed. Deal with the problem reasonably as it arises, if it affects productivity or might cause harm to self and their colleagues.