Drug Testing Research Paper

Meet Aaron Short. A 26 year old average male who lives with his beloved mother, father and little sister in Hoppers Crossing. Young and in love. Making plans for the future. As perfect as this life sounds, Aaron’s happiness is not so clear cut. In August 2015, Aaron experienced a tragic relapse in his addiction to heroin. It was this drug that took Aaron’s life in a fatal overdose later that month. What is even more heartbreaking is that Aaron is not alone. Aaron joins thousands of other Melbournians who are stuck in hopeless drug addictions, with limited resources available to save their lives. So what can be done even begin to tackle such a problematic and sensitive issue? It starts with a trial. A trial for a supervised drug injecting room in Melbourne. As concerning as this may sound, if we want to save the lives of helpless victims, reduce criminal activity and protect our community, we must keep an open mind and unite as a community to urge the government to introduce a trial.

In life many people struggle with problems, and instead of them addressing the problem their way to get their mind off of it is by abusing drugs that gets them to stop thinking about it. These people often struggle with this on an everyday basis and it is killing our society little by little. Many people are dying everyday due to opioids and everyone as a community should help put a stop to it!

The systematic scheduling of drugs in the United States is arbitrary which leads to a discriminative social injustice. Some psychedelic substances such as Psilocybin are schedule 1 drugs, while alcohol and nicotine are legal. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) both alcohol and nicotine are proven to be harmful and addictive (2017). Conversely, Psychedelic substances have not been proven to be addictive. This equates to a social injustice that discriminates over someone who may prefer the effects of psilocybin to nicotine, even under the science that has shown nicotine and alcohol have a higher potential for abuse. Unfortunately, many political factors come into play regarding the legal status of drugs and industries such as the pharmaceutical, tobacco and alcohol industries, who harbor the most money and have an influence in the legality of drugs whether they are safe or not. While legalizing psychedelic substances would most likely cut into profits for these large industries they would bring about economic benefits as well.

Prescription drug abuse and overdose-related deaths have reached an epidemic level in the United States and are an urgent public health concern. To combat this opioid crisis, in 2016 Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) was signed into law. CARA authorizes grants to increase access to treatment services and opioid reversal drugs such as Naloxone, strengthen the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), expand prevention and educational efforts. In spite of the extensive range of activities authorized by CARA to control this epidemic, the US has experienced an increase in the number of the opioid overdose-related emergency visit from 2016 to September 2017. Therefore, after considering the policy options to reform this act, the most apropos solution would be the universal mandate of PDMP use. Mandating PDMPs can reduce prescription overdose and misuse of opioids. In order to ensure the impact of this program, PDMPs will have to be implemented on a Federal level. This will essentially make sure that all states taking part in the program are responsible for keeping track of registered physicians and dispensers under the Prescription

A controversial subject many Americans are constantly at battle over is legalizing drugs. Some experts have the opinion that drugs should be legalized for medical treatment, and for help with severe illness. Other experts argue that this will have a bad effect due to overdosing and addiction, and also the adverse affect on teens. I do not think that drugs should be legalized but they should allow people with serious medical conditions to use these illegal drugs. Legalizing drugs would only create and even bigger drug abuse situation, and especially for juveniles. Legalizing drugs would also create the question of what to do with criminals who are already incarcerated for this offense. There are surveys, which give statistics on crime, and how crime rates are affected by the use of drugs. For example, there is one survey called the “National

“In 2002, 404,000 people used heroin in the United States. By 2016, there were 948,000 people. This is a 135% increases in the past 14 years” (Kounang). I decided to research about heroin, because I want to know what heroin is and which celebrities have done it and survived or died. I knew it was an addictive drug that many people overdose on. There was a lot of misconceptions that I had about heroin. Originally I thought heroin users become addicted instantly. I still have some questions about heroin. Why is heroin so popular? Who has done it? Even though some people think heroin is not bad, people should not take heroin because it's a highly effective drug and tons of people are dying from overdosing.

According to a federal official, the ongoing scourge of prescription-drug addiction is beginning to reach epidemic proportions, ballooning about 75 percent in the United States within the past five years (“Prescription-drug Abuse Escalates”). Prescription drugs have become extremely overused due to the pain killing aspects, along with a sort of “high” when they are being abused. This high has been something people chase and will do anything to get. A report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration indicated that there were more American adults using prescription painkillers than cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, or cigars combined (Ingraham). The over proliferation of prescription drugs has become a major problem with adults.

However, drug testing is constitutional and has proven to be useful nationwide in America. A simple search on the World Wide Web will unveil the truth about the constitutionality of drug testing in America. Two major cases from Supreme Court, Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton and Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County, et al, Petitioners v. Lindsay Earls et al, involved the challenging of officials’ ability to drug test students in order to participate in extracurricular activities. In both cases, the ruling resulted in a majority declaring these test requirements to be constitutional (“Prevention”). Along with the fact that testing has held its constitutionality in Supreme Court, evaluations have proven that the testing process effectively minimizes drug use among high school students in extracurricular activities. “Some 16 percent of students subject to drug testing reported using substances...in the past 30 days, compared with 22 percent of comparable students in schools without the program (‘The Effectiveness’).” This fact means that six percent less students in the high schools studied were not using drugs in the schools which had been implementing the drug tests. If this same number would be a proportionate reflection of all high schools in America, six percent more of high school students - about 3.3 million teenagers - would not be utilizing drugs and contracting the painful consequences later in life (“Fast Facts”). That is a humongous number which means a humongous number of kids would be drug-free, living healthier lives with even brighter futures. The constitutional drug testing in high school athletics could save over 3 million kids from having to endure possible years of life with painful illnesses like cancer during

Even though drug testing is very expensive, ALL high school’s athletes should be tested because drugs are bad for your health and very addictive. A simple drug test could save many lives. Many schools around deny the request to drug test their athletes for the simple conclusion that the cost of the testing would just be to expensive. I disagree whole heartedly on that because although it may be expensive, we could save so many lives by requiring drug tests to play sports. Many students have love for the game who would have no problem giving up drugs for the chance to play sports with drug tests and a little guidance.

In the United States of America, there is prescription drug abuse epidemic that continues to be a growing concern. Prescription drugs cause a large amount of overdoses and result in an abundant amount of deaths each year. A government study conducted shows this epidemic is scarily on the rise, “A recent government study found a 400% increase in prescription drug abuse between 1998 and 2008” (Schreiner 531). The excessive use of prescription drug abuse is leading to nonmedical use of the drugs, and creating addiction. Furthermore society is paying an extreme amount of money in this battle. With this drug abuse on the rise, legislators must create a law preventing doctors and pharmacists from over prescribing prescription medications as well a law to require they both participate in drug monitoring programs to prevent drug abuse. Now is the time that doctors and the pharmaceutical industry must be held accountable for their role in causing one of America’s worst addictions. The over medication of prescription drugs in the United States must be brought to an end by legislators creating laws to stop

In today’s time and age, you have many work places that do have drug testing but in others you do not have any. The people that do drugs and have a job think that it is okay to do what they are doing because they know that they probably will not get caught. When you have two people that are friends and one goes out and parties and smokes weed or does other drugs they think that it is okay for their friend to come along and do the same stuff when really their friend is not able to because their job requires random drug testing. People think that random drug testing is not fair to people when even it is not fair for some because other work places do not do it. In addition to that, people drawing governmental help also do not think that they should be drug tested because they need the help too bad. If people got drug tested getting the governments help then that would help people truly do need the help to get it, because people know that they should not try to get help if they are on drugs.

Drug testing has become a very big issue for many companies. Approximately eighty-one percent of companies in the United States administer drug testing to their employees. Of these, seventy-seven percent of companies test employees prior to employment. Even with the commonality of drug testing, it is still a practice that is generally limited to larger corporations which have the financial stability, as well as the human resources to effectively carry out a drug testing program. In the United States, it is suggested that as many as 70 percent of drug users are employed. Now this is a huge chunk, but as a result of drug testing, these big corporations have a significantly lower percentage of the employed drug users on their

As unfavorable as productivity loss, increased expense, and decreased safety are, there are some who are against workplace drug inspection. These opponents claim the testing procedures violate personal privacy and are therefore unconstitutional (Cantrell). In Drug Tests and Polygraphs, it is expressed that drug tests are invasive of privacy because employers do not hold the right to examine the bodily fluids of employees by means of urinalysis (Jussim, 15). Furthermore, adversaries argue that mandatory examinations allow employers to monitor off the job drug use behavior (DuPont, 126). Opponents further the argument against testing by asserting drug testing to be inaccurate (Berrien, 122-123). These critics have cited lab and test errors as the source of inaccuracy (Jussim, 31). Fortunately, the aforementioned concerns and deficiencies can be conquered by putting into effect carefully controlled drug screening

Based on studies,”workers have clearer minds and works faster when drug testing was made available”(Scientific Studies). This shows that more people will be more productive when doing their work after drug testing is used. Many workers think better after they know everyone has stopped use of drugs. In addition,”workers are more likely to finish and do better on their work when drug testing is used”(Day Studies).This states that more people are doing better at work after the drug test. People can focus more and do better when they have no drugs in possession.

Drug addiction is a complex problem in society today. Addiction is a condition that extremely affects the person’s mind and body. Addiction also has wide sweeping effects on that person’s social connection and functioning. Unfortunately, many addicts don’t realize the social influence of their addiction until much of their functioning has greatly deteriorated.