NCJ Number
106924
Journal
Nova Law Review Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Dated: (Winter 1987) Pages: 605-645
Date Published
1987
Length
41 pages
Annotation
Drug testing is a search (and arguably a seizure) subject to the limitations of the fourth amendment and cannot be justified without some level of individualized suspicion of drug-induced job impairment.
Abstract
Under any one of several theories, mandatory drug testing by a government employer is a search and seizure. It fits the theory articulated in Boyd v. United States (1886) and is consistent with the theoretical requirements of Katz v. United States (1967). It is distinguishable from the private search situation. To the extent that a higher or more pressing interest than privacy is asserted by the government, it is balanced by the extreme intrusiveness of the testing process. The test is not narrowly designed to search only for current drug use and thus becomes only marginally related to the governmental interest in preventing work intoxication on the job. Analogies to approved blanket/random checkpoint situations are weak. 114 footnotes.