Ironically, the Federal Government still ends up paying the price despite all of their efforts. I know around 10 top tier programmers who use drugs of some sort, have left of mainstream politics or just don't fit the "government worker" bill, but are no less patriotic and competent people. The loss of these people from the upper echelons of the state tech system is almost palpable. The CIA director was hacked by a bunch of teenagers from Eastern Europe, for Christ's sake!

And then on top of that, even with all the screening they do, they still stop the Snowdens from infiltrating, still can't stop foreign intelligence, still can't get a sysadmin worth their salt to keep our future President's clandestine email server safe from the public's prying eyes!

That is...most jobs. Unless I'm not understanding your meaning. Many jobs will fire you for, say, getting a DUI or getting arrested for drug possession or something. And many employers do drug testing. But realistically, a "limited sub-selection of possible activities" is just about everything everyone else can do, except maybe go to Cuba or smoke pot, the latter of which will get one fired at many non-government places.

Is drug testing always legal in the US? Can drug use on weekends get you fired for any job?

I lived in several European countries, and as far as I know there's no way an employer can force you to take a drug test, with the exception of people handling heavy machinery. If you are on drugs while you're at your job this will of course have consequences, but a drug test that would reveal drug use in your free time is nothing the employer should be allowed to do or even care about.

As an example, the rules in the UK clearly say that you need consent and that it has to be required by the nature of the job, which should exclude most (if not all) office jobs. [1]

[1] https://www.gov.uk/monitoring-work-workers-rights/drug-testi...

You can be fired for almost any reason in the US. There are only a few exceptions such as race, religion, sex or for reporting violations of some laws.

So, yes, in almost any job you could be required to take a drug test and be fired if you refuse.

Smoking weed is not going to get you fired anywhere, except for the worst jobs in the worst places. Any place that does regular drug testing and/or cares one teeny tiny itsy bitsy bit about employees smoking weed when they're not working is guaranteed to be a terrible place to work at, for that and any number of other reasons. There is not a single reputable company in the entire tech industry that does this.

Uh, yeah, "in the tech industry" being the huge caveat here. Most HN readers might work in tech, but most people in general don't.

> Smoking weed is not going to get you fired anywhere, except for the worst jobs in the worst places.

Do you have numbers to back this up? Because almost every place I've worked at has had this policy. I think it's a terrible policy and should be illegal, but it's been pretty standard everywhere. Maybe it's not common in SV, but everywhere else it seems to be the norm, IME.

It has never been an issue for me as I don't partake, but anecdotally, I've worked at 5-10 mid range (100-200) firms in Virginia and Illinois and while I have been provided many free beers at work, if anyone suggested a drug testing program they would have been laughed out of the building.

I even worked for a company that ran drug testing programs for the government and they did not drug test.

That is definitely not true:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/15/news/companies/dish-employee...

I think you just proved his point.

http://cable.tmcnet.com/topics/cable/articles/2013/01/07/321...

"Out of 617 ratings on glassdoor.com, fully 246 called themselves “very dissatisfied.” The number of employees considering themselves “very satisfied” was just 48. Some comments even suggest that executive meddling may be involved in the “very satisfied” scores, with one commenter saying “Joe Clayton (CEO) put us up to upgrading our score.” Another commenter called their time with Dish “...like a prison sentence.”