Was the drug testing program justifiable under the spacial needs doctrine?

Question

A union challenges drug testing provisions in a collective bargaining agreement. The program requires testing of 15 percent of covered employees, meaning that an individual employee can expect to be tested only once every seven years on average. The urine specimen collector may be outside the bathroom in the near proximity and the employee closes and (locks, if he/she chooses) the door and has full privacy while urinating. Covered employees include probation or parole officers who have regular unsupervised access to and direct contact with probationers or parolees; non-custodial prison employees who have regular unsupervised access to and direct contact with prisoners (including athletic and program coordinators, chaplains, counselors, therapists, special education teachers, dietician/nutritionists, and general office assistants); and medical workers in prisons and mental health facilities (including nurses, occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, physicians, and dentists). There was no pre-existing drug problem among these employees. What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Yes
Justice Thomas' opinion of the Court in Board of Education v. Earls held that a state may have a special need to deter and prevent drug use among a specific group despite the absence of a particularized or pervasive drug problem among the group. Also, the State does not have to justify the drug testing by the specific reasons for upholding drug testing in National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab (1989), where no special problem of drug abuse existed. Instead, the drug testing of the state civil service employees in this case must be considered in their own unique contexts. The special needs beyond the normal need for law enforcement justification in this case is that "there exists the potential for substantial harm" for employees who either have "1) law enforcement duties, 2) direct and unsupervised contact with prisoners, 80 percent of whom have a history of drug abuse, or 3) a responsibility to deliver health care or psychological services to persons in state custody, that would pose a significant potential threat to the health and safety of themselves and others if they use drugs or were under the influence of drugs while on duty." The covered employees are in a pervasively-regulated industry.