Dilemma of Drug Testing

This paper provides an analysis and applicability of two bioethical theories that are; Kantianism theory by Immanuel Kant and Utilitarianism theory by Jeremy Bentham and Mill. The paper may be of great assistance to a health practitioner who is in the process of looking for alternatives or revising a policy in the workplace and come up with a decision that is appropriate. This paper recommends that Health institutions should commit themselves to improve job safety and standards of care by investing in modern computerized medication. Also, health organizations step up procedural training and assessment and to encourage open discussions, quick reporting, and error analysis, this will help in reducing the current trend of downsizing nurses who are registered in preference to less trained ones.

Introduction This paper presents well discussed legal, ethical and moral insinuations in screening for the existence of drugs as a situation in the continuing hiring of employees or as a constituent of health screening of occupation applicants. This paper scrutinizes, in the setting of the state situations, how the matter of drug screening is apportioned in the labor regulations in the United State of America. Drug abuses and addiction cases are gradually regarded as debility; however, they aren’t continually definite such as in equal rights and other defensive regulations. This paper also scrutinizes employers’ retorts on the misuse of drugs and alcohol reliant staffs, as well as a dialogue on, responsibility to “rationally quarter” from an ethical viewpoint and in totality considering authorized issues and price.

Putting into consideration that this paper deals with the moral and ethical issues it is right to understand what they entail. Morality is the condition of being pleased by somewhat correct resolution. Different studies have suggested that, amongst drugs users, absenteeism is larger, meaningfully many ill- leaves benefits are castoff and a number of accidents rise. According to Walsh and Gust who reports that the impact of a research demonstrating level of abstinence amid the abusers of cocaine and marijuana to being fifty percent more than those who do not use. In the USA, described price of drug abusers in the year 1980 was demanded US$46. 9 billion. By 1886, the number had increased reaching US$100 billion. In the case of as a hospital, it is unethical for medical workers to engage in drug abuse (Richard and Middlebrooks, 50).

These usually handle human lives and if they are on drugs they can cause damage, like they may end up treating a patient from a wrong disease or even giving the wrong subscription of drugs to patients or in the case of testing result in the lab for a patient they end up getting wrong results and hence treating the wrong disease and this may result in the death of patients (Macdonald et. al, 95). In this thinking dimension, the circumstance that the worker has taken the drugs when he or she not on duty it does not matter; the issue is that the drug is still in the body, that the vigorous element for the worker to do the work safely.

In conclusion, the advocates of the testing state that those people who test positive to having traces of drugs and alcohol from a class of persons and that existing in that class are the basis for classifying them as difficult in their initiatives and for the entire community. al, 95). Providing a sample of urine for a test to be carried out is expended that it's carried out by a person who has consent if it is not it’s considered an interloper or an assault. In case the employee is not contented with the results after the analysis he or she is expected to take the urine to a urinalysis or to be disciplined or discharged for infringing on what would be linked to as a usual civic right of a worker (Richard and Middlebrooks, 50).

In matters in the argument over drug testing is nonentity less than if the employees can be subjected to lawful strategies in the workplace, where their bodies may be held and looted over a bound abstraction and examination of body fluids in order to regulate not on task of damage or substance abuse, but past to drugs that might have happened recently before the examination while the worker was not on duty. Beyerstein and others have harangued that the actual incentive for testing is the documentation of different performance. Though this is illegal it will solely depend on the adopted penalties by the facility in a case that a positive finding was found and that an individual has not agreed to undergo testing (Smit, 102).

Overt discrimination, evil motive, and adverse differential treatment are the only three forms of discrimination recognize in the current human right practice (Robert and carol, 85). It would be a mistake to ignore the tenability of the use of drug testing procedures by some health organizations or other enterprises, to deny employment to certain individuals on the basis of their origin, age group, Drucker, (2012). Also, random drug and alcohol testing may not be useful in the given random procedure if the intentions are to discriminate. In addition, the drug and alcohol testing may be misused such that only a certain category or type will be favored. In the US it is illegal to discriminate against individuals on the basis of their race, the nation of origin as provided in section seven of the Civil rights of 1994.

On the flip side, there have been situations where drug dependent workers were fired instead of being given a leave to seek treatment even though they had admitted their drug problems (Heshizer et. al, 42). Decisions Potential Kantian ethics are used in this paper in a bid to arrive at a reasonable resolution and recommend the best course of action relating to drug testing. Kant, a German philosopher held the belief that when it comes to morality there is a supreme principle (Edwin et. In relation to ethics, utilitarianism suggests that the rightness or wrongness of an action should be based on the consequences. This rule is used in the matter of drug screening at work will help the health official to shift their focus to the bigger picture and the impacts of testing in the medical practice, (Kagan 2018).

Among the main stakeholders in the health facilities include the government, patients, and pharmaceutical companies among others. A health facility that that conducts regular drug testing will be highly regarded by the stakeholders (Flannery and Harry, 54). Also, in making the decision we should also consider the implications of drugs and alcohol to a business usually when the drugs are used inappropriately. According to Snyder, (2012), it is imperative that the full and informed consent of the employee is obtained as well as a right to access all the relevant records and samples he/she has provided in the case where he/she would like to challenge the results given by the physician. Also, in cases where the process of drug testing was done for other intentions from medical practice then the involved employees should have the equal legal rights as they would have when they are needed to give intimate body samples in the line of a criminal investigation.

This is because of the probable serious implications of an error of positive results for their livelihood. Arguments against drug testing in medical facilities indicate with the aim of enforcing a workplace that is drug-free is too expensive, yet the entire procedure is a summation of infringement of the moral and the privacy right of individuals. An analysis of urine samples, for instance, is just a test, that when undertaken without a person’s consent can be termed as trespass. Smit, Hans. "International Litigation Under the United States Code. " Columbia Law Review 65. Maynard, Edwin P. , Karen Coblens, Errol D. Muczyk. "Drug testing at the workplace: Balancing individual, organizational, and societal rights. " Labor Law Journal 39. Flannery, Harry A. "Unilaterally Instituted Drug Screen Tests in the Unionized Private Industry: An Appropriate Response?.