Prison guard drug tests upset union
The Department of Corrections is facing a backlash after introducing random drug and alcohol testing for prison guards. The new testing regime took effect on July 1 and means any officers involved in accidents or fights – or who are suspected of being under the influence – will have to undergo on-the-spot testing.
Can’t be an easy job being a Corrections Officer. Surrounded every day by angry violent human beings who don’t want to be there and who will lash out at any given moment.
It would be like living in the Labour Party caucus.
I can imagine many a Corrections Officer might go home after a stressful day and like many adults in NZ, roll up a cannabis joint and chill out.
I can imagine that. The problem with the ever growing list of professions now demanding the ability to poke into what you do in your private life is that it isn’t measuring impairment, merely the use of an illegal substance.
With cannabis the most widely used illegal drug, these drug tests catch out stoners. A Corrections Officer may have a smoke on a Friday night in the privacy of his/her own home, go to work Monday, get involved in a fight and immediately get drug tested and the THC will still be in his system and test positive. It won’t show whether or not the Corrections Officer is actually impaired and under the influence of cannabis, it will simply show a positive and the worker loses their job – NOT because they are under the influence of drugs, but because they have done something illegal in the ‘sanctity’ of their own home.
My main issue with drug testing is that it’s never the bosses who are forced to be dug tested, always the workers. This becomes less an issue of safety and more an issue of control. Insurance companies won’t insure workplace safety if drugs are suspected and lo and behold the drug testing industry does the rest.
One unforeseen consequence is that these ever growing drug testing regimes, including the beneficiary ones, are fueling the mass consumption of legal highs. The irony that actual cannabis is less harmful than the synthetic stuff is best enjoyed stoned.
With the State wanting to spy on us 24-7, the drug testing isn’t so much a measure of whether or not you are impaired by a drug, it is increasingly a means to inject even more surveillance into our wage slave lives where rights to privacy have been eroded by the demands of the corporation.
Where drugs have an actual impact on the ability of a person to complete their job – throw the book at them, but to merely pick up on the residual drug left in the system and use its illegal status as a new cudgel to bash workers is one hell of an Orwellian comedown.
This isn’t about safety, it’s about employment destabilization.
My Pledge Me account for my documentary on Cannabis in NZ can be found here.
Hi Martyn
I agree Martyn
The irony that cannabis is actually less harmful and much more benign than all these legal synthetic alternatives is rich indeed, especially with the psychoactive substances bill looking at making certain (provably safe) synthetics available while making sure cannabis stays unavailable.
As far as testing the bosses goes, the cocaine would probably be out of the bosses systems already by Monday if they were going to be tested but I’m descending into cliches here.
SImple. Get rid of prisons. No more screws to be tested. End of problem.
I agree completley, not a truer word spoken. Nothing wrong with having a smoke in your own home. People are being interrigated by having their urine samples looked into, i stand against drug testing and refuse to work for anyone that does this. We didnt need drug testing before, we dont need it now. There is a fairer test, the saliva test which can test positive if you have recently smoked, ie. 9 hours. But do they do fair? Fuck no
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