Drug tests present major hurdle for employers

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• HARI SREENIVASAN, PBS ANCHOR:

  So Jackie Calmes, how big is this problem of people walking away from a job interview when they hear that there's a drug test?

• JACKIE CALMES:

  Well, it's bigger than I thought! Clearly, because this whole subject came to me in a completely separate news story I was reporting. And employers, local leaders, just volunteered to me that as the unemployment rate came down, the biggest hurdle they were facing in finding – in filling jobs was finding people who were willing to take a drug test, and if they did take a drug test, could pass it. And I thought, well, that can't be as big a problem as they're making it out to be.

  So a couple of weeks later when I had some time, I started making calls around the country. This initial tip was in Indiana. And it was like shooting fish in a barrel; it was so easy to find employers to tell me it was a problem.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  Is there any kind of way to break this down? Is it a type of worker? Is it from a specific region, a type of industry where these employers are facing these challenges?

• JACKIE CALMES:

  It's across the board, but it's clearly a bigger problem in jobs for unskilled or low-skilled people. But not exclusively. And it's interesting. I hadn't realized the extent to which drug testing had become all but ubiquitous in our American labor market for all jobs from, you know, low skilled and blue collar to higher skilled and white collar. It's become a fact of life in the last 20 years.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  And is the predominant drug that leads to failure – is it marijuana? Is it heroin? Methamphetamines? What is it?

• JACKIE CALMES:

  Well, that was another surprise to me because I thought, particularly because "The New York Times" among other media, have been paying a lot of attention to the opiod and heroin epidemic. But the biggest problem by far, the biggest complaint of employers, is marijuana use. And the statistics show that in the last couple of years, at least, marijuana use – illicit drug use – is up a bit in the population. And the marijuana today stays in the system longer. And it's more – less than, like, a weekend use, like maybe a couple of decades ago, to more of a lifestyle of near-nightly use, near-daily use.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  Is there any correlation between those states that have either legalized recreational use or medicinal use?

• JACKIE CALMES:

  Yeah, that's a great question because I wondered about that. So I right away asked if it was different in Coloardo, say, or Washington, D.C. where it has been legalized. And was told no, it's really no different. And the thing is, if you're an employer, say, in Colorado, where recreational use is legal, you still – it does not affect your company policies. You can still say you have to take a drug test to be hired. And you might be randomly tested while you're here.

  And it also doesn't affect the federal law that anyone who has a job that is so-called safety oriented – trucking, anything transportation related – has since 1991 required testing. Both to get the job and then randomly while you're on the job —

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  And companies have an incentive to be drug-free. I mean, their insurance —

• JACKIE CALMES:

  Right.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  — decreases.

• JACKIE CALMES:

  Exactly. And it's not just insurance. In the past couple of decades – well, it's related to insurance in that the last couple of decades, there's more liability that employers have if their employees do something on the job that causes injury to others, or can be sued, can get them sued, then they're liable. And if they have – if they're certified as a drug-free workplace, they have some, you know, defense.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  Jackie Calmes, "New York Times." Thanks so much.

• JACKIE CALMES:

  Thank you. Thanks for having me.