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Originally Posted by California Tanker
Alcohol use is not illegal, only use to a certain extent conducting certain activities. I don't believe there are any condition or level-based criteria on whether other drug use is illegal (outside of medical laws in some states) so the requirement for 'currentness' seems useless.
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Lots of things are illegal, but the fourth amendment requires some cause for suspicion to justify a search for evidence of illegal activity.
DUI 'searches' depend largely on arguments that getting a driver's license implies consent--which is where the 'right vs. privilege' argument comes in, and on reasonable suspicion.
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I don't believe that working for the government is a legal right either, and have you never seen the results of having a government agency make a 'clerical error'? I was once on the receiving end of a several-thousand dollar one, it wasn't pleasant for a few months.
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While I have no doubt that that clerical error was the result of a clerk having smoked marijuana a couple of weeks prior, it's still unconstitutional.
Private employers get away with it because private employers aren't bound by the constitution. The government, even in its role as an employer, is, although there have been any number of attempts, some successful, to chip away at the fourth amendment to allow it.
Wholesale drug testing is expensive, ineffective, and unnecessarily intrusive; and the only real tangible benefit it provides is to those who profit from it.