Since posting my earlier Pet Peeve message, I have been surfing employment ads and maybe it is my libertarian nature, but my blood boils at the number of employers now requiring drug testing. And not just any old blood test, but hair sample tests. Hair sample tests mean that they can see if you've done anything in the past and depending on the length of one's hair that can go back a long time.

I have no problem with testing individuals who are going to be in jobs that require carrying guns, flying airplanes, handling money, operating dangerous equipment or related-types of positions. I have serious problems with companies who advertise that  they require hair sample testing for receptionists or other innocuous positions. Unfortunately this now seems to be the rule rather than the exception and it very much bothers me.

I don't do drugs. I hardly ever drink alcohol (a toast at New Year's or a wedding, maybe one Margarita at a Mexican restaurant), I don't fall into the traditional categories of those who might be under suspicion since I'm over fifty and spent most of my life in very sturctured environments, i.e., military wife, Congressional staff member, etc. I guess what I object to most is the blanket implementation of these testing policies. I find them insulting.

Someone like myself gets caught having to go into lenghthy explanations about prescribed painkiller and narcotic drugs as I've had six surgeries in the past ten years, the last just a few months ago with my knee replacement. I've been intravenously injected with morphine, demerol, and other controlled substances all of which show up in my hair. The fact that I don't take these substances now and only had them for the recovery period, usually under one month, I don't feel it is anyone's business. I don't like being put into a position of having to explain something well in the past that is totally irrelevant to the job being offered.