Ethics And Drug Testing Essay

This paper represents the legal, moral and ethical implications of testing for the presence of alcohol or drugs as a precondition of employment or as a condition of continued employment. It is the author’s opinion of moral, ethical and legal issues that such testing causes. What exactly is meant by "moral and ethical issues"? The "Moral" refers to the conditions to be satisfied by any right course of action. In the context of drug and alcohol testing, the objective factors such as privacy, employer control of employee behavior, confidentiality and issues of social responsibility, constitute the moral issues that must be considered. "Ethical", on the other hand is a subjective concept and refers to the "correct and honorable" way in which objective moral issues are dealt with. The ethical approaches to the moral issues are varied and as shown in this paper, the way that they are dealt with varies according to circumstances. Moreover, the moral and ethical considerations form the basis of whether drug and alcohol testing are seen to be acceptable. The moral and ethical issues of drug and alcohol testing in the workplace are
It is conceivable that selective use of drug-testing procedures could be used to deny employment or continuing employment to, say, persons of color or national origin, or persons of a certain age group, if the penalty for drug usage is dismissal from or denial of employment. Random drug screening might not be applied in a "random" manner if the goal is to covertly discriminate. Moreover, drug testing could have an impact on selective categories of employees. For example, if all employees were tested, only men or only members of a certain race might be disciplined in the case of positive