When Employers Say Piss, Americans ask 'How much?'
How Drug Testing Trashed the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
November 8, 2025
Americans roll over and play dead when it comes to drug testing. Not that I can blame them, of course. Drug warriors have blackmailed them into compliance by denying them the right to work in America should they stand up for their Fourth Amendment rights. That said, however, I am disheartened by the lack of pushback against this flagrant violation of American freedoms. Drug testing gives employers the right to trample the Bill of Rights, and most Americans take this in stride.
It's a good job that I am a senior citizen, because I would starve if I were starting out now. I would never urinate for an employer in order to satisfy his or her morbid curiosity about the plant medicines of which I might choose to partake. The only drug test with which I would comply would be one that was limited by law to flagging impairment only. I would literally rather be poor than to give up my right as an American citizen to my freedom from unreasonable search -- and nothing could be more unreasonable than a biochemical fishing expedition inside my very body, as undertaken by a private enterprise, no less!
I think everyone who urinates under such conditions should have the right to see a breakdown of the biochemistry of their employer's urine -- as well as that of the lab techs who are testing the applicant samples, in blithe ignorance of the fact that they are thereby trashing the most basic of American freedoms -- the right to privacy, not just in one's home, for God's sake, but inside one's very body! Drug testing of this kind screams out the words "Unreasonable Search" -- and our courts' failure to recognize this fact shows how far the right wing has taken over American government. These courts do not even seem to know what the word "principle" means.
These are the courts that say, in regard to peyote use, that we do not have a right to religious liberty if we are practicing a religion that was not practiced by our ancestors! See? These guys are just making it up as they go along. They simply use their creative writing skills to invent literally unheard-of "rationales" for ruling against drug use: the more arbitrary the better, because they thereby signal to Americans that the right-wing is in control and doing as it pleases. "Principles?" they cry. "We don't need no stinkin' principles"!
Unfortunately, our thoroughly cowed population seems to agree, otherwise there would be organized pushback against drug testing.
Occasionally, I overhear a conversation that sounds hopeful. Some friends and family members are actually discussing drug testing. But then I realize that their concern is limited to their fear that the ingestion of poppy seeds, as for instance from crackers, might return a false positive for opiate use in some upcoming test. That is a merely selfish concern. Their real concern should be that they are being tested in the first place. (I want to tell them: "That's not YOUR problem! Sue the ---- if they deny you work because you eat crackers! They have no business making hiring decisions based on equivocal data like that!")
But let me do my best to see this from the Drug Warrior's point of view. Let's suppose then that safety does indeed make it necessary for private enterprise to trash our Fourth Amendment rights. Okay. Let's assume that the Founding Fathers really didn't mean it when it came to the Bill of Rights. Fine.
In that case, let us begin searching for alcohol in our tests, a drug which kills 178,000 Americans a year, far more than are killed by so-called "drugs." 1 If we find so much as a trace of liquor, let us deny the culprit the ability to work in America. Indeed, let's really crack down, because we need to be SAFE, don't we?! We owe this to our KIDS!! Let us confiscate mansions and estates whenever so much as a beer bottle is found on the premises -- and who cares where it came from! (Don't you hate these topers that hide behind technicalities! Well, no more!) Instead of throwing mothers out of public housing for using a drug that Freud considered to be a godsend for depression, let us start throwing CEOs out of boardrooms if they test positive for having consumed deadly alcohol -- now or at any time in the past, it does not matter when! We're doing this for our children, remember? Tough love, folks! Tough love! 2
But somehow I fear that our Drug Warriors are not quite THAT interested in safety. They are thinking of policies that would serve to rough up their political opposition, not policies whose consequences would hit home for them personally.
And so I conclude as follows:
Until acne-scarred lab techs start testing the urine of Drug Warriors for liquor consumption (that may have taken place at any time in the past, I don't care when), I'll keep my zipper up, thank you very much. And that goes for you Lowe's... and you, Amazon... and you, Costco, etc.
Someday a free people are going to rise up and shame such drug-testing companies for helping to trash the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Like when Laura Sanders tells us in Science News that depression is an intractable problem, she should rather tell us: "Depression is an intractable problem... that is, in a world wherein we refuse to consider the benefits of 'drugs,' let alone to fight for their beneficial use."
Hollywood presents cocaine as a drug of killers. In reality, strategic cocaine use by an educated person can lead to great mental power, especially as just one part of a pharmacologically balanced diet.
In "How to Change Your Mind," Michael Pollan says psychedelic legalization would endanger young people. What? Prohibition forces users to decide for themselves which mushrooms are toxic, or to risk buying contaminated product. And that's safe, Michael?
Drug testing should flag impairment only. Any other use is a flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment.
It's a category error to say that scientists can tell us if psychoactive drugs "really work." It's like asking Dr. Spock of Star Trek if hugging "really works." ("Hugging is highly illogical, Captain.")
Psychedelic retreats tell us how scientific they are. But science is the problem. Science today insists that we ignore all obvious benefits of drugs. It's even illegal to suggest that psilocybin has health benefits: that's "unproven" according to the Dr. Spocks of science.
We won't know how hard it is to get off drugs until we legalize all drugs that could help with the change. With knowledge and safety, there will be less unwanted use. And unwanted use can be combatted creatively with a wide variety of drugs.
Saying "Fentanyl kills" is philosophically equivalent to saying "Fire bad!" Both statements are attempts to make us fear dangerous substances rather than to learn how to use them as safely as possible for human benefit.
Typical materialist protocol. Take all the "wonder" out of the drug and sell it as a one-size-fits all "reductionist" cure for anxiety. Notice that they refer to hallucinations and euphoria as "adverse effects." What next? Communion wine with the religion taken out of it?
Folks point to the seemingly endless drugs that can be synthesized today and say it's a reason for prohibition. To the contrary, it's the reason why prohibition is madness. It results in an endless game of militaristic whack-a-mole at the expense of democratic freedoms.
But let me do my best to see this from the Drug Warrior's point of view. Let's suppose then that safety does indeed make it necessary for private enterprise to trash our Fourth Amendment rights. Okay. Let's assume that the Founding Fathers really didn't mean it when it came to the Bill of Rights. Fine.
Like when Laura Sanders tells us in Science News that depression is an intractable problem, she should rather tell us: "Depression is an intractable problem... that is, in a world wherein we refuse to consider the benefits of 'drugs,' let alone to fight for their beneficial use."
