Toward effective and ethical drug abuse prevention policies: The case against indiscriminate drug testing

For an increasing breadth of organizational domains, a negative illicit drug screen result has become the final and paramount criterion for admission and/or continuing participation. Such a policy is vigorously promoted to the private sector by government and vendors of testing services as an inexpensive and vital tool for suppressing drug abuse. This policy, however, can been shown to be at once empirically unwarranted, methodologically dubious, constitutionally impermissible, and ethically unsustainable. Reducing the harm attributable to illicit intoxication is a legitimate and worthy social goal. The ends, however, cannot justify such means of indiscriminate and intrusive surveillance