IIRC all US government contractors have to be tested on hire. Most of the large temp firms also do drug testing in the US (in my experience at least.) Never tested for booze, though everywhere I've worked on site has made it clear that you will be drug tested and breathalyzed in case of an on-the-job accident.

As i've moved up in job quality it has gone from "we will test you aggressively to see if you do drugs" to "why would we care about this?"

Practically it is very stupid because the heroin/meth/cocaine type drugs become undetectable within days while pot takes weeks.

It's a dumb US thing, basically.

"IIRC all US government contractors have to be tested on hire"

That must be a new -- post 2007 -- thing, then.

Sorry, you're right, it might be DoD only.

Developer here. Asked to take a test, to work as an Austin-based employee of a Chicago company, owned by a Texas company, that owned (among other things) a warehouse that shipped guns purchased through their brick & mortar stores.

You tend to see drug tests a lot in retail, fast food, and many other low-wage low-skill jobs. I truthfully have no idea how effective that is in weeding out people who would be generally unreliable, but that's often the justification given by managers.

I'm sure there are some ultraconservative companies that drug test everyone — including developers and senior managers — but those are few and far between in comparison.

Unfortunately, drug tests are yet another hurdle poor people have to clear in order to earn a living wage.

Outside of the red tape domains, like banking and government, I've never been drug tested as a developer. The idea that a low skill worker is more likely to be on drugs is classism. Low skill workers really get no autonomy. They are drug tested, have to clock in and out, and even have monitored lunch/bathroom breaks. It's kind of disgusting to think about.

There certainly is some of that, but there's also different requirements for customer service positions where being in a specific place at a specific time is a core part of the job.

There's at least a few places out there run by Mormons who do hair-tests on their employees and won't hire you if you've been drinking alcohol. Even for high-level managers, executives and the like. (Enough of them that I've run into one person talking about her employer doing that, anyway.)

I work at a large telecom company and we drug test everybody.

Incidentally, it's quite awkward if you're currently employed when you get the new offer - as I was. The lab that collected the urine sample opened early in the morning for "regular" work but only accepted drug test samples from 10 AM to 3 PM on weekdays.

Like Dell.

I'm not sure they can test for alcohol since it is federally legal (I know that most places would test for on the job incidents however. I'm meaning it in a "drug test" style screening). Aside from that, I'm not sure how long you can find traces of it in your system. I wouldn't guess it to be longer than 48 hours.

EDIT: parentheses content.

CO allowed a company to fire an employee for testing positive for THC. It's fully legal there.

Also, health care companies have been allowed to prohibit employees from using tobacco.

Private company can test you for being a Democrat or being gay. I don't see why not alcohol.

How do you test for either of those?

They made me do it when I worked at an investment bank.