@Jabe73, I can understand your frustration, especially if everyone at the company is not treated alike.
Toward the end of a long, discouraging job search, I went back for a second interview with a company that sounded very attractive to me. They seemed interested as well. Then they said, “Just one thing. It’s our policy to ask candidates to agree to a drug test.”
That stopped me cold. I said, “I don’t use drugs and I have never used drugs. But I have a principled objection to drug testing. If you have reason to suspect someone of drug use, that’s one thing. But in the absence of any cause, I see no reason to submit to a test.”
The interviewer said, “You know that means we have to take your name off our list.”
I stood up, shook his hand, and said, “Thank you for your time.”
This is a difficult question. I don’t want to get on a plane being flown by someone who’s intoxicated. I don’t want to be operated on by a surgeon who isn’t sober and clear-headed. But neither do I want to be treated like a criminal when no one has any reason or cause to suspect me of wrongdoing.
As I suggested above, I think the job requirements of taxpayers is a separate question and just clouds the issue here. All employed people are taxpayers, and there are different requirements for different jobs. The jobs I’ve held have all required an exceptionally strong command of English, but it would not make sense to impose that requirement on all recipients of public assistance. Well, maybe it would, but that too is another question.
Requiring recipients to meet certain criteria is reasonable. Basing the criteria on what the workers must do to keep their jobs has a kind of emotional punch to it but is actually completely irrelevant.