drug/alcohol testing policy: effective?

"Corky Scott" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 21:32:06 GMT, "OtisWinslow"
wrote:

I don't drink, smoke or do drugs because I wish to take care
of my health and continue to fly.

Drinking in moderation is now considered beneficial to your health.
Moderation is usually defined as a glass or two of wine per night.

It is not the alcohol that is considered beneficial. You could get the same
benefits from drinking grape juice without poisoning yourself with alcohol.

"NW_PILOT" wrote in message
...


Takes one hell of a lot of popyseeds to test posotive.

A single bagel or muffin can cause you to test positive and there are people
who have lost their jobs because of it. Because of this the drug test is
being revised.

Another outrage is people who have too much water in their urine have lost
their jobs because it was presumed they were attempting to disguise their
drug use by drinking water. Of course, many diets encourage water drinking
and flight crew in particular should drink lots of water to avoid the
dangers of dehydration.

"Frank" wrote in message ...

If they were really serious about highway safety they'd give people a
'driving' test, not a drug test. Same applies to pilots.

I don't much care if you're high, liquored up, haven't slept in three
days,
or just plain incompetent. The victims are just as dead.

They might as well administer a sleep test. "How much sleep did you get
last night? Four hours?! Well, clearly you're a hazard to aviation."

So it boils down to bureaucracy and public image after all. Just making
sure. Drugs and alcohol just don't seem to be a significant source of
aviation accidents. If it's cost prohibitive to the extent that it hurts the
small-time commercial pilot, it just doesn't seem worth it.

(If it's not cost prohibitive after all, it's probably not an issue.)

-c

"OtisWinslow" wrote in message

I think "probably cause" testing only would be more cost effective. The
war on drugs is just one more handout to businesses involved in it.

To this extent, I know a woman whose adult daughter worked for a company who
provided drug-masking chemicals as a urine additive...they'd sell that for
six months or a year, and then release the agent to detect the chemical.
Then they'd sell another masking chemical....

The employee, by the way, smoked pot.

-c

"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
news:2KJvd.77134

I didn't smoke pot while flying because that would be stupid.

Granted, there are plenty of pilots who do plenty of stupid things, but
that's how I look at it.

Too damn many people are like I used to be.

Heh. I applaud your honesty!

-c

gatt wrote:

They might as well administer a sleep test.

That would certainly be a great idea, if they could do it. Several of the
existing regulations on airline pilots, truck drivers, and railroad engineers
have no other purpose than to ensure that these people have at least the
opportunity to get enough sleep.

Drugs and alcohol just don't seem to be a significant source of
aviation accidents.

And there's no way to tell to what extent that's due to the fact that random
testing is required in some fields of employment.

George Patterson
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
news
Quitting something that is bad for you because of rules that were imposed
on me was a bad idea?

Yes. A non-idiotic approach to the issue would be to base one's decision on
quitting on real facts, not some economically-motivated rule-making.

I'd bet a whole dollar that there's a jillion former pot-heads flying
today who quit because of drug testing.

A jillion you say? Uh, right. Whatever. I'd bet a lot more than a dollar
that the number is well below that, and in any case I'm not really concerned
about pot-heads flying, as long as they aren't under the influence while
flying. What do I care whether they quit or not?

A held that stance years ago. Now I realize that more-than-occaisional
drug use is a sever character flaw and not a flaw I want in a Captain or
FO.

I disagree that even "more-than-occasional drug use" is necessarily a
problem, as long as that drug use doesn't occur when it would interfere with
a person's obligations. But nevertheless, your qualification of
"more-than-occasional drug use" is not observed by drug testing. Even
occasional users will get strung up by it.

Then we will agree to disagree.

Indeed.

Pete

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
It is not the alcohol that is considered beneficial.

Not true. The healthful benefits of moderate alcohol consumption have been
well established for about a hundred years now.

You could get the same
benefits from drinking grape juice without poisoning yourself with
alcohol.

Sorta true. You can get the same antioxidant benefits from grape juice as
from red wine. The antioxidants in grape juice even stay in the body longer
than those found in wine. But you miss out on the indisputable health
benefits of moderate *alcohol* consumption.

So, I have self-prescribed a cold beer as soon as I walk in the door from
work and a glass of Merlot as I cook dinner. I'm still alive so it must
work.

I applaud your choice to remain as chemical free as possible, Chris. But
calling alcohol "poison" is hyperbole and ignorant and makes you sound like
my mother-in-law.

--
Jim Fisher

"Jim Fisher" wrote in message
news [snipped]

Quitting something that is bad for you because of rules that were imposed
on
me was a bad idea? I'd bet a whole dollar that there's a jillion former
pot-heads flying today who quit because of drug testing.

I'll betcha there are a bunch of ex-pothead controllers out there too who
quit for the same reasons. I'm pretty close to one of them, but he'd never
admit his past sins on a public forum for fear of losing his federal job.
This guy I know started smoking cannabis in college. He enjoyed it so much
and so often that he started losing control of the direction his life was
going in. As you might expect, he soon saw falling school grades, low
energy, no motivation, etc., the classic results of habitual pot use. It
was fun (he says), but it was a dead end. To steer his ship down a
straighter, narrower channel, this guy walked into a recruiting office and
enlisted in the Marine Corps. The Marines drug test with a zero-tolerance
policy. The he used his Marine Corps experience to get an FAA job as a
controller. The FAA drug tests too, with a zero-tolerance policy.

Somewhere along the way, this guy realized just how damn bad drugs are for
building a person's character. Like every controller I know, this guy would
tell you that people who make their living in aviation safety related
fields, say pilots who fly under Part 121 or Part 135, or mechanics, or air
traffic controllers, should be randomly drug tested *often*. It's an air
safety thing. You don't want unmotivated, low-energy, maybe high-as-a-kite
folks playing around with airplanes that will be carrying passengers. The
problem with drugs is that you can't always know when a person is high, or
when drug use is affecting critical safety skills like judgment or
coordination. No matter what the rate of positive on a random test is among
this group of aviation professionals, the air safety goal has to be zero tol
erance for drug use.

Random testing in the field of professional aviation is a necessary evil. I
firmly believe that even if we completely legalize pot someday for the
masses, we will still have to maintain a zero-tolerance random drug testing
policy or else air safety will suffer.


I'd bet a dollar a lot of them are reading this right now but are too
chicken to admit it.

I'll bet you're right on the money, Jim.

Chip, ZTL

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message

I'm not on any sort of test plan, so testing is not a factor.

Are you a commecial pilot? If so, how does that work?

I obey the FARs as far as drinking goes because I wouldn't want to find
out the hard way that the Feds are right about

I can say categorically that I can't even conceive of flying under the
influence of alcohol, pot...Benadryl...I rarely drink pop or coffee before I
fly 'cause caffeine is a diuretic. paradox. I'm less worried about having
an accident because of alcohol (I rarely drink) than I am about potentially
having an accident and then having the NTSB determine that there was alcohol
in my system.

If you have an accident, what good is the test? Since there are people out
there
who would fly while intoxicated, I think it likely that random testing
prevents
this to some extent.

Thanks, George. Food for thought.

-c