Brother Blur's Addiction  

More than four out of five U.S. employers now require pre-employment drug tests, and 39 percent conduct random drug testing of employees, the Lakeland (Fla.) Ledger reported Feb. 6.

The Society for Human Resource Management said in a 2006 report that 84 percent of private employers conduct pre-employment testing, 39 percent conduct random screening of employees, 73 percent conduct for-cause testing, and 58 percent require drug tests after on-the-job accidents. State and federal law also requires drug testing in many public-sector jobs.

The tests cost about $40 each. Some employers see it as money well-spent, but critics say the tests are intrusive and ineffective. Experts note, for example, that the tests are far more likely to detect marijuana, which stays in the body for up to a month, than harder drugs like cocaine and heroin, which are metabolized within one to three days. And few employers test for alcohol.

A registery lets the community know that there's someone like this in their community, because the likelihood of them going back and doing it again is high," said Georgia state Rep. Mike Coan, who has proposed a meth-offender registry in his state. "It's no different, really, from the sex offender (registry). If there's one living near me, I want to know it."

Tennessee is one of four states with an online meth-offender registry, starting the first in the U.S. in 2005; it now includes the name of 400 offenders. Similar bills have been introduced in Oklahoma, Washington, Kentucky and West Virginia; Illinois and Minnesota are in the process of implementing meth registries.

The registries are seen as a public-safety weapon against meth-lab operators who open clandestine labs full of potentially lethal chemicals.