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Comment by 13of40 | Hacker News Reader

Serious question: Has anyone here in "IT" (including software / hardware engineering), not for the government, actually been subject to drug testing? I had it in a state government job and the military, but nothing in ~20 years of private sector tech work.

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Never in SF. A friend worked for a local company that got bought up by an east coast corporation. The new HR sent out an email that the new owner required drug testing. The local group announced, collectively, that they would not be participating. "But that's our policy!" "We'll all quit and have new jobs by the end of the day." "But that's our policy!" "Not anymore."

The local group won out, and the parent corp abandoned the policy of testing their California employees.

My knee-jerk is that it's an East Coast thing. I've never been drug tested, and I've worked for companies of all sizes and types, nor have I ever heard of anybody getting drug tested in the Seattle area.

Yes. Cerner in Kansas City. Worst company I've had the displeasure of working for.

haha how interesting. Worst software products i've had the displeasure of being forced into using!

They sucked up a lot of compsci grads from Missouri State. I'd always wondered what they were like.

Awh. They weren't bad.

I was. I was told it was because we handled PCI and HIPPA data for various clients, and that a clean drug test was required for compliance with those rules. When I asked if now-legal marijuana coming up on the drug test would be considered a failure of the test and thus cancel my onboarding, I was told it would.

Whether or not the reasons I was given were bogus or not, I would be in no way surprised if my scenario happened at other companies as well.

> I was told it was because we handled PCI and HIPPA data for various clients, and that a clean drug test was required for compliance with those rules.

It seems you were mislead, according to https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/Card_Prod_Sec...:

Q 1 December 2013 – Drug testing is not required in the PCI Card Production Security Requirements. Is this an oversight?

A No, PCI does not require drug testing due to the wide variances in country laws governing where or when drug testing is allowed. However, that does not preclude card vendors from requiring drug testing wherever and whenever they deem necessary.

I wasn't able to find anything relating to HIPAA, but I've worked around HIPAA since before it was passed and your post is literally the first time I've ever heard that claim. Not saying you're wrong, just that this is a new one to me.

HIPAA absolutely does not require drug testing, though it's (I suppose) possible that your company may have adopted drug testing as part of one of the sets of procedures that HIPAA mandates (it doesn't seem to directly address any HIPAA requirement, but it's at least plausibly tangentially related to some of the workforce-related requirements.)

I'm highly skeptical that it's related in any way (although I'd be very interested in proof that I'm wrong). If it were, it'd be almost impossible to run a health startup in NorCal. Marijuana use is not universal, but I've never worked in a shop without at least a couple of coworkers who were open about using it in their off hours.

Yes I'm in IT in Atlanta and at a large corporation and I got tested. In fact most medium to large companies that I know of do in this area.

I believe you get some kind of tax break by drug testing.

Insurance break, not tax.

I began smoking marijuana regularly in 2002. I have taken, and passed, multiple drug screens, including for Government, Top Secret Clearance-level, jobs. In more socially-conservative areas, which I lived, you will see more IT jobs requiring drug tests, including in the private sector (Hewlett Packard, Hynix, and Intel screened, to name a few). Since nobody has on-site testing facilities, You usually get a 2-3 day window to attend a third-party lab and let them take a sample, which gives you ample time to procure the items you need to pass them. In the event of a random (or targeted) drug screen, you will still have an hour or two, likely giving you enough time to go home and get your pre-bought equipment.

Urine tests are usually easy to pass, as it's likely an invasion of your privacy as a non-felon to watch you urinate, therefore, it is a trivial matter to have synthetic urine (bottle warmed in your inner-thigh/groin to body temperature) ready to squirt into the cup, as well as into the toilet. If I recall, it was about $25 to purchase a bottle.

Hair tests required you to purchase $30 bottles of special shampoo that would strip away anything (leaving your hair feeling like straw), provided you follow the directions on the box, which was to scrub like crazy for 15 minutes. You'd get a good 3-4 hours of clean hair to attend the lab, which is more than enough time for most people.

I now work at a (incubating) canadian medical marijuana startup, so I no longer worry about such things, but I'm sure I'll be telling the grandkids about the measures people took during prohibition eventually.

Big Bay Area tech company, no. Big east coast tech company, yes.

Yep. Every time.

Every employer I have ever had did pre-employment drug screening. A few likely companies have even done pre-interview screening. No one has ever done anything at all drug related after the initial hire date.

It's almost like they're just checking a box on an HR form, and no one actually cares.

Yep - Tech in Portland, OR. Drug tested but the panel didn't include marijuana... thankfully :)

Not in 25 years in engineering in Los Angeles but I did a lot of contracting for media companies

Never in the electronics/aerospace/defense industry in the northeast. Sure, some companies have a policy that says employees might get tested, but in my decades of experience, no one actually does.

I had to submit to a drug test to work for a big national general contractor. (I was hired as a marketing assistant. This was in the early 2000's)

Every IT job I've had said it would be possible I'd be asked, but none of them ever did (almost all in gov't contracting in the US). The only time I've ever been asked was for a summer job working with kids at a camp where everyone was tested once a year.

I am in the UK and had to give samples for a software job 4 years ago. I lost one hire due to that policy

Crikey, couldn't you pre-warn them so that they could go clean for a bit?

What an absolutely laughable policy. You'd have to fire half of bloody London if they tested for charlie.

I'd massively kick off at HR for this if I couldn't hire someone for this reason.

Was this for a job requiring vetting? haven't heard of this out side of SC /DV required jobs before.

I heard of it at Transport for London and Network Rail, since union pressure extends the same checks drivers get to management and other staff.

I don't know if this is current.

Yup, 2 years ago I was tested as part of my background check in NYC. Very happily employed there still.

I work at a big telecom and had to pee in a cup to get hired. I have a feeling people who work in a company that has employees driving or operating heavy machinery are going to get tested. It's probably a clause in their insurance contract.

It's really nobody's business but your own what you do on your own time. Particularly when the interested party is your employer. I've never been asked and, on principle, certainly wouldn't submit myself to that sort of screening.

In Texas; The Austin American-Statesman did. The boutique financial investment company would have (they also wanted me to wear at least a jacket and tie as a never see customer developer).

Never, nor would I submit to one, even if I wasn't using.

Yes when I worked at a large corp in TN. I suspect they didn't really want me to stick around long-term anyway and were looking for a way to get rid of me.

Once for an insurance company in the Inland Empire. It was a contract job and I wanted to help a friend. But I refuse to take drug tests.

Very rare even in giant corps from my POV

Yes, for multiple medium to large size financial companies.

Working for pharmaceutical manufacturers requires a drug test, and I assume there are other industries with similar requirements

Most testing in IT jobs is related to federal rules for companies doing contracting for the federal government.

Yup, share an office with a warehouse.

Yes, small software firm I worked at was purchased by Valassis Inc. A few people left immediately.

Yep. I work in an IT department as a .NET developer and was subjected to a drug screening prior to hire. It's a private sector business, but we have access to PII and banking information. Edit: this is in Colorado.

it's weird to see all these productive members of society speaking up about being forced to pee in a cup for employment reasons...

yes, software dev / northeast US / small to medium research companies & manufacturing and no to a small software startup.

Yes, it every job I've ever had.

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