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Searches and Seizures: Drug Testing The Supreme Court actually ruled that drug testing is an invasion of privacy to such an extent that it is a search. When drug testing is conducted by a government entity, it is governed by the Fourth Amendment. But what about drug testing in schools? Does it matter whether a school is public or private? What about drug testing at work? Can a private entity let police know of a positive result? These questions are explored here. Pages: ‹1› ‹2› ‹3› ‹4› ‹5› ‹6› ‹7› ‹8› ‹9›
However well-meant, the candidate drug test Georgia has devised diminishes personal privacy for a symbol's sake. The Fourth Amendment shields society against that state action.
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Few would doubt that the use of illegal drugs and abuse of legal drugs is one of the major problems of our society. Cases before this Court involving drug use extend to numerous occupations... It would take a bolder person than I to say that such widespread drug usage could never extend to candidates for public office such as Governor of Georgia. The Court says that "nothing in the record hints that the hazards respondents broadly describe are real and not simply hypothetical for Georgia's polity." [...] But surely the State need not wait for a drug addict, or one inclined to use drugs illegally, to run for or actually become Governor before it installs a prophylactic mechanism.
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Under normal Fourth Amendment analysis, the individual's expectation of privacy is an important factor in the equation. But here, the Court perversely relies on the fact that a candidate for office gives up so much privacy -- "candidates for public office ... are subject to relentless scrutiny -- by their peers, the public and the press," [...] -- as a reason for sustaining a Fourth Amendment claim. The Court says, in effect, that the kind of drug test for candidates required by the Georgia law is unnecessary, because the scrutiny to which they are already subjected by reason of their candidacy will enable people to detect any drug use on their part.
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Lest readers expect the holding of this case to be extended to any other case, the Court notes that the drug test here is not a part of a medical examination designed to provide certification of a candidate's general health. [...] It is all but inconceivable that a case involving that sort of requirement could be decided differently than the present case; the same sort of urinalysis would be involved. The only possible basis for distinction is to say that the State has a far greater interest in the candidate's "general health" than it does with respect to his propensity to use illegal drugs. But this is the sort of policy judgment that surely must be left to legislatures, rather than being announced from on high by the Federal Judiciary.
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We caution against the assumption that suspicionless drug testing will readily pass constitutional muster in other contexts [than testing of student-athletes in public schools].
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