What are the Drug Testing Laws for Florida Employees?
- Drugs in the workplace have been responsible for tragedy.drug vial and syringe image by William Berry from Fotolia.com
The effects of drug abuse in the workplace can lead to loss of sales, destruction of property, theft and even death. Because of this, the state of Florida has enacted several laws to ensure Florida businesses remain drug free and safe for the public. - According to the Florida legislature, “Drug use has serious adverse effects upon a significant portion of the workforce, resulting in billions of dollars of lost productivity each year and posing a threat to the workplace and to public safety and security.” Even so, the constitutional right to privacy protects employees from being tested for drugs without cause. Because of this, Florida law gives the right to randomly drug test employees who are “safety sensitive” or present “special risk” to person or property. These types of jobs include blowtorch operators, elevator operators, theme park animal handlers, bankers and other positions of a sensitive nature to people or property. Because these employees still retain the right to privacy under the constitution, the drug tests must be conducted randomly to ensure privacy and impartiality. A drug test cannot be ordered on a specific employee without reasonable suspicion.
- An employer may require a particular employee to take a drug test if they have reasonable suspicion that the employee is doing drugs. According to Florida state legislature, “reasonable suspicion drug testing means drug testing based on a belief that an employee is using or has used drugs in violation of the employer's policy drawn from specific objective and articulable facts and reasonable inferences drawn from those facts in light of experience.” This means that a supervisor must have recent signs that a person already predisposed to do drugs may be doing them again. Grounds for a reasonable suspicion are gathered by evidence that a random drug test was recently tampered with, recording observable phenomena such as behavior or coordination while at work, or reports from peers.
- In the state of Florida, a workplace that drug tests their employees must also raise the employees’ drug awareness through the use of other educational tools. This Drug Free Workplace educational program must include up-to-date information on relevant material including the prevalence of drugs in the workplace, how to spot someone under the influence, the adverse effects of different types of drugs, and alternatives to taking drugs to help stay awake or relieve boredom or personal problems. While the integration of this type of program is not legally necessary for all companies, all companies that implement a random drug testing routine require it.
