
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 16, 1990                   TAG: 9005160221
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

SOME PRE-JOB DRUG TESTS RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL

A federal judge, in a major new decision limiting the government's power to require drug tests for job applicants, ruled Tuesday that such testing is unconstitutional if the job has nothing to do with police work, public safety or official secrets.

U.S. District Judge Gerhard Gesell ordered the Department of Justice to go ahead with the process of hiring a Washington lawyer even though he has refused to take the drug test required of all applicants for attorney jobs at the department.

The ruling was a victory for Carl Willner, who, ironically, had developed an interest in going to work at the department when, as a private lawyer, he sued it in an earlier case against drug testing at the agency.

Although Gesell's decision dealt specifically only with new applicants for jobs as lawyers in the department's Antitrust Division, the reasoning of the ruling appeared likely to affect many new applicant-testing rules in other federal agencies.

The judge declared that if there is no reason to suspect a person seeking a government job is a drug abuser, that individual's constitutional right of privacy generally prevents the government from requiring a drug test as a condition of being hired.

However, Gesell did not rule out testing as a condition of being hired for jobs in which the new employee would carry a gun as a law enforcement officer, get involved in prosecuting drug cases, carry out duties directly involving safety risks, or have access to classified information. Willner's job as an antitrust lawyer would involve none of those situations.

Beyond those categories, the ruling appeared to provide a legal basis for challenging widespread pre-employment drug testing in federal agencies. Willner's lawyer, Arthur Spritzer of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ruling could be extended beyond the Department of Justice and, if so, "is going to stop a great deal of testing - many thousands of tests every year."

by CNB