My brain is fried

With doing all this research on drug testing it has made me wonder why I really did not care when I had to do a drug test. I didn't feel like it was invading my privacy because the employer's are just looking out for themselves and want an employee who is reliable and productive not someone lazy and never shows up to work. For the most part I just took part of the test because I knew if I did not then I would not have got the job that I was applying for. In the end I will leave another cartoon for you to indulge.

Image was taken from http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/t/test_gifts.asp

Drug testing should be done

With employees doing drugs and coming to work is not acceptable by any means, even if they do their job properly without any error. The fact of the matter is that if the employee came into work without taking any drugs they would perform better. Sure I have heard some people say that they can not perform properly without a coffee or their morning breakfast and the drug addicts say the same thing, but they can though it will just take a while to rehab and be able to work normally.

This is your brain on drugs

I was just surfing through the net and ran into the ad where they show a pan with some oil and say this is drugs and then put an egg to show that the egg is your brain on drugs. I remember this ad very vividly, the slogan sticks to your mind "This is your brain on drugs".

If you want to check out the ad here's a link
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PTOsCYZQass

Cartoon continuing with the sports theme

This cartoon just goes with what many olympic events are worried about athletes doing drugs to have an advantage in the event they are doing.

Cartoon was taking from http://www.mackaycartoons.net/2004/2004-08-12.jpg

Why?

Why is it that drug testing seems more important in sports then any other jobs? Sure they want to make a leveled playing field so no one person can have an advantage in the sport they are partaking in. Also in sports it seems like they are under the microscope of the general public, if it was a doctor who was taking drugs compared to a sports athlete, the athlete would feel the wrath of the media much more because of their high profile status.

Olympics

I'm sorry, but I can't help it I am a sports freak so that's why I have been talking about sports mostly. In an article that I just recently read six Australian Olympic athletes were banned from the Olympics forever because "The Austrians were found guilty of possessing prohibited substances and taking part in a doping conspiracy." What I found funny was that none of those athletes failed the drug tests but were still banned. Basically the IOC (International Olympic Committee) banned those athletes because they were thinking about taking the drugs. In my opinion if they did not take the drugs and took part in the events with a fair manner then they should not be banned.

Here's is the article which I took the quote from

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=ap-iocmeetings&prov=ap&type=lgns

another funny cartoon

Another funny cartoon

taken from that same website below.

DRUG ABUSE

Now you might think that I am going to talk about how too much drugs are bad for us. Well it is but what I was going to mention was that drugs abuse the economy also. Take for example if you had a co-worker who you knew was taking drugs but was always on sick leave would you rat them out? They are just sitting on their butt at home reaping the benefits of sick leave, while you are busting your butt at work and have more work to do because someone has to pick up the slack for the co-worker being absent.

Ahhhhhh this paper

While doing research for this paper I found out many new drug testing methods such as nail and hair testing. I just wondered why I never heard of it before because it is costly so many of the companies go with the standard urine testing because it is cheap. With nail testing they can trace drugs 4-6 months ago. With hair testing it also can trace drugs a long time ago and is very dependable and accurate.

Another cartoon

I found another funny cartoon while I was looking for more information on the article

The image was taken from this website

http://www.occ-doc.net/drugtestcartoons.htm

Babbling about drugs

I know this is not business related but the recent Tour De France winner Floyd Landis was trying to justify that he did not take any drugs when he won the Tour De France. The lab conducting Landis' B sample result said that Landis had traces of synthetic testosterone, which is not allowed.

What made me particular pick this was that Landis was acting like a employee who worked for a major company when he said "When they asked us originally to test it, first of all, we said no. It's already been tested, and it's been negative. There's no purpose in testing exactly the same samples a second time." quote taken from http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news;_ylt=AgRZW5RgZs3g4nerOA_BksR.grcF?slug=ap-landis-doping&prov=ap&type=lgns

Is the world cycling just targeting Americans because they really do not want them to have the title? Seven time champion Lance Armstrong was tested numerous times before they finally succumbed to him. All the samples they took from him were negative so they did not have any hard evidence to convict him of cheating. Even though I am sure that they are still trying to get him because they do not want him to have the title. That was a great feat of seven titles and in a row from 1999 to 2005.

When can companies or organizations just give it up that the employee or athlete are not taking drugs but are acting on their own will and skill. For them to test a person that much it seems like it is a personal vendetta.

Funny cartoon

I was wondering if sometimes companies did drug testing just to fulfill a quota that is required by the company. If they did how would they choose what people to test. Doing these tests does not matter though if the employees are producing what they are expected to. If they falter in their production then they have a right to be expelled from their jobs or be given a warning.

The Whizzinator

Many have tried to deceive drug testing by using alternative ways of getting a sample that will pass the test. One example that I remember, just last year Onterrio Smith a player for the Minnesota Vikings in the National Football League was stopped at the airport for carrying dried urine, a device called "The Whizzinator" and a bottle of pills which were called a cleansing formula. He was denying it was his and that it was his cousin , but being an athlete any excuse does not look like it is going to fly unless you are OJ Simpson. The Whizzinator is a device that cost $150 which included a prosthetic penis attached to a jockstrap and plastic bag. You would use a syringe to fill the bag with a certain amount of water mixed with urine powder to get a sample that would pass the drug test. When I looked at "The Whizzinator" website http://www.whizzinator.com/, I was shocked on what lengths people would go to pass a drug test. Why can't they just not do drugs and pass it regularly. The product even had different colors to match a man's skin tone which I thought was pretty funny.
I knew people who would take some medication to pass a drug test. What I did not understand is why would they do drugs the night or week before when they know they have a drug test coming up. It was just mind boggling that people had an infatuation with drugs and really did not care about the job that they were trying to get.

the new prospectus

Usually I do not follow outlines for papers but when it comes to a long paper such as a research paper I tend to follow them because they keep me in line with what I have to do and keep me away from what I do not have to type in the paper. Here's my new prospectus

Prospectus Drug Testing in Employment

1. Introduction
   Show what I read and what were its’ main points
2. Background
   Talk about issues that are happening right now such as Barry Bonds and other examples
3. Argument Reconstruction
   What is the author trying to get across about the two arguments?
4. Argument Evaluation
   -Talk about the first argument which consist of job performance and knowledge of drug use
   -Talk about the second argument which consist of harm and knowledge of drug use to prevent harm
5. Countenance Possible Responses
   What ways can drug testing be dealt different?
6. Overall Merit of Argument
   My evaluation of the arguments the author presents
7. Outstanding Questions/Emerging Issues
   What can we do to make people feel like their privacy is not being invaded? Can we not have drug testing at all?
8. Conclusion Just try to wrap everything up that I learned from the article and other resources

Changing my Prospectus

I was going to do my report on Markets and the role of ethics in capitalism by Amartya Sen on pg. 190 , but I changed my mind because I really did not know that much about the topic. I could have learned about the topic but it was going to take much more time so I decided to do the Drug testing in Employment by Joseph R. Desjardins and Ronald Duska. When I read the article it was much more interesting because it does have a major impact on a person getting hired or fired in the workplace environment.