okay so uh what do you think about it
well um i guess i i'm more concerned about public safety than i am about the um the concern for
the private uh the idea of preserving privacy for the individual um because i can't really see why anyone
privacy right
um who has nothing to hide would object
well there is always the uh the possibility even remote as it is of uh of mistaken uh of
that's of course that is certainly true yeah
yeah and see that bothers me i'm i'm a i mean i'm i'm very much for drug testing
um-hum
uh i really am i mean i'm going i'm going to take the negative side just for a second just to do it
sure
um see i have to take uh medication for a uh for for kidney transplant and i'm going to be taking that the rest of my life now you i don't know how that's going to affect uh
uh-huh
sure
if you had to have a drug test yeah
right i mean i haven't had one yet um TI i work for Texas Instruments and and uh we you know we do have the random drug testing but i've missed it so far but i mean it in the back of my mind it always bothers me and what happens if it you know if it
um-hum
um-hum
if they catch it they think that i'm you know i'm on drugs and they send me and and have me uh you know go through this this thing you know yeah
checked out or whatever i but it seems to me that there are ways to accommodate that um i agree that that some innocent person might be victimized by a false test
but i would think that um that some guidelines could be set up to avoid that for example that one uh positive
would not be uh accepted as an automatic um
reason for whatever they might be going to do if they found a positive uh dismissal or treatment or whatever
right
but that that what it would do is it would trigger perhaps uh one or two more stages where further tests could be taken uh done
um-hum
because um there are there must be people like you or in other circumstances that could come up with with uh false positives for certain kind of drugs on the other hand um
i think there's certainly some professions that ought to be tested
oh yeah
because of the of their responsibility for the public welfare and certainly people in uh industries well the transportation industry for specifically uh you know specifically but um in many many cases
um-hum no
yeah
whether or not an individual has a problem with drugs it's not even going to effect anybody but his uh you know himself and his own family perhaps um
depending on the kind of drug he might be on but um and eventually that's going to show up anyway
right
in the way he works and so on but there's so many things that it would make a difference i guess i
um-hum
i uh i would not want to have anyone in my family uh victimized by someone who you know a a bus driver or a train engineer or something like that who um you know hadn't been tested
right well i you know i'm like i said i'm i'm very much pro testing um and and this is why
yeah
uh number one is i i'm i'm kind of i know this sounds like a slogan for the government but i you know we are in a war against drugs i mean
yeah sure
it's it's horrible i mean
you don't know whether the person sitting next to you anywhere is on drugs or not
um-hum
um-hum
and it takes some drastic steps at this point and i think personally the drastic step has to be
that um that you can't work if you continue taking drugs i mean it's as simple as that i mean make it so
yeah
make it difficult enough
well make it uh make not necessarily difficult but make it so that it's not glamorous
yeah yeah
i mean it's glamorous taking drugs or at least it seems that way
yeah according to what you you hear the people who um have serious problems i mean we have um really i guess we're kind of lucky we really only know of one um
yeah
young man who uh who's a family they go to our church and it's the son and so on and he was friends with my children
um-hum
um and he's really the only one that i know of personally who got himself really messed up um having having been involved with drugs but
i know of a number of other people who have you know gotten all messed up most of these are young people i work in the education system and so i have a little more contact with that but um
um-hum
the effect that it's had on this young man's life is so dramatic that it's heartbreaking and he may never really be
um-hum
a productive member of society But sadder than that he may never be able to have a normal happy life
because it has strung him out so that he has anxieties now that are are almost uncontrollable i mean he he puts himself in the hospital
fairly regularly thinking that you know he he's not sure if he's going try to commit suicide or not
hum
i mean he's you know he's so messed up
right
and um this was a nice sweet young man who teenager you know and he's now a young man about twenty i guess who um just got
really down the wrong path and uh you know i don't know that that his problem would ever have been detected by drug testing
right
but seeing what drugs did to him makes me see makes me realize what it could do to people you know in the work force as well
um-hum
um it's horrible
well then let's let's answer the second half of the question what limits ought to be put on it do you think
well the limits uh uh would i think have to do with what i'd alluded to before that there needs to be a further um
that that one positive on a drug test would not
um-hum
constitute uh dismissal or grounds for whatever the company or agency might
uh have set up for those who genuinely have a problem in other words there needs to be um more than
um-hum
treatment before for dismissal type thing
pardon yes right there needs to be more than one test and there needs to be some
some measure of uh certainty before anything drastic happens there are lots of things that are involved there um such as perhaps insurance
um-hum
um-hum
uh you know denial of insurance for someone um and undoubtedly there are people who would be victimized by this um
that would that you know it would be unfair and people who are on medication for example or um
even even people who might be of the gay community and i'm not an advocate for that particular segment of society but um i think that
there doesn't need to be fuel to the fire for discrimination because it makes a bigger problem
right
um so it seems to me that that um there needs to be some ground you know some rules that protect
um-hum
i'm not sure though when we talk about what rules if any that we should say well certain segments should not have to be tested i really don't see why
personally i think that's what i was about to say is that everyone needs to be tested
and
yeah
yeah i don't i don't know why it would be you know um
bad to test just everyone and it may be you know it's not feasible to do everyone but certainly random testing the fact that people know that that they
that it could happen um-hum
yeah would be some measure of protection but the bottom line is that that if if you're going to stay clean and straight then um
you're you're going to do that because you want to really
right
well there's yeah there there's going to be some measure of incentive
uh reward or whatever but the reward ultimately ultimately comes down to what you want
yeah
so i i've got to agree with that
so um hum
no that's very true
well it sounds like we agree anyway
yeah i think so i think we i think we did pretty good
yeah
well all right well uh i guess that's about it
i guess if that's all we've done and i guess we've talked long enough
all right
it was nice talking to you
it was it was talk nice talking to you too
okay bye-bye
all right bye-bye
