Section 15 Drug and Blood Testing

• Library: Employer-Employee Law 2008

The Supreme Court has ruled three times on the constitutionality of drug testing of public employees. Nat’l Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656 (1989); Skinner v. Ry. Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602 (1989); Chandler v. Miller,
520 U.S. 305 (1997). In Von Raab, the Court found that the United States Customs Service’s drug testing of employees applying for promotion to positions involving interdiction of illegal drugs constituted a “search” subject to the reasonableness requirements of the Fourth Amendment. In determining whether the search, which required neither a warrant nor any measure of individualized suspicion, was reasonable, the Court concluded that the government’s:

compelling interests in preventing the promotion of drug users to positions where they might endanger the integrity of our Nation’s borders or the life of the citizenry outweigh the privacy interests of those who seek promotion to these positions, who enjoy a diminished expectation of privacy by...