The Wall Street Journal reports today that people are cheating on employment drug tests more often:
Approximately 6,000 urine samples out of about 5.5 million collected from the general U.S. workforce last year were classified as substituted, Quest said. That’s a more than sixfold increase from the previous year.
Well, sure, but as the orange line in the chart shows, this represents growth from 0.02% to 0.11%. Not really much to be worried about. In fact, I'm a little disappointed the number is so low. It suggests a lack of rebellious spirit among the American workforce.
But put that aside. What interests me is that this article goes into some depth with its statistics; explains how drug tests are gamed; and informs us that most failures on drug tests are due to marijuana. But what it doesn't do is question the sixfold increase.
And really, come on. Nothing real increases sixfold in a single year. So what's going on? Is it an artifact of better testing? It doesn't seem to be. A sudden surge in lawless behavior? Not likely. So what is it?
I have no idea, but here's my best guess: some non-obvious form of cheating—i.e., not asking your girlfriend to pee in a cup for you—went viral on TikTok or Instagram or something. This prompted a few thousand people to give it a whirl.
What other possibilities are there? Take a guess in comments.