Drug testing for Society auditors

Sangre

paedos are imprisoned forever?

mloc

Sangre wrote:

paedos are imprisoned forever?

Only on the inside.

DemonOfTheFall

Sangre wrote:

I think paedophilia is the new and improved Godwin's law.

QFT. It's hilarious how many people say paedophilia when they mean child molesting as well.

Pythia

Wow, where did this idea come from? There's no way I'd even think of using my society's funds for my own personal uses, let alone for drugs.

Dontico

Red Alert wrote:

I made the point for illustrative purposes. It's neither illegal to be a drug user or paedophile, however gaining possession of the drugs with intent to take them is illegal.

intent to take isnt illegal. intent to sell is.

mloc

Dontico wrote:

intent to take isnt illegal. intent to sell is.

you can't take them without being in possession of them... hence illegal. I suppose you could theoretically have taken them without your knowledge, but in general having taken drugs would be a good indicator of having been in possession of them.

Het-Field

mloc wrote:

Only on the inside.

Mabye its time to flog em

Blush_01

Someone has too much time on his hands and should be studying more and worrying less about whether or not auditors are drug users. I know auditors from many different societies (and was one myself in the past) and whatever actions they perform personally - with regard to anything - does not necessarily impact on their job as an auditor. You can be the auditor of a society and be off your face all day every day and never touch a cent of society funds in order to finance your actions. Likewise you can be an auditor and never touch drugs but treat society funds as an extension of your own cash.

I have known one auditor ever, in my 4 years here to be the latter and he got hauled over the coals for it. There's definitely more than one of the former, and I have yet to see them ever have a problem.

Do we not have enough pressure on auditors who give up their own time freely without accusing them of embezzling funds with no grounds other than their own personal choice when it comes to intoxicating and narcotic substances? That's a gross invasion of that person's privacy and it is really none of anybody's business.

Question: what if the auditor of a society was on high levels of medication to treat an illness etc. Would they fail? Why should their personal circumstances (given that they have never impacted on their performance as an auditor) be made public unless they want them to?

Question #2: Why is this being suggested of society auditors and not of Sabbats, OP? Auditors are not hired by the SU. Sabbats are. Why should their drug habits or lack thereof be inconsequential when they also deal with SU money (and a lot more of it than an individual society) despite the fact that they're being paid to do the job in the first place and are therefore employees of the students?

I find your curiosity misplaced and frankly disturbing in its acuteness.

mloc

Blush_01 wrote:

Question: what if the auditor of a society was on high levels of medication to treat an illness etc. Would they fail? Why should their personal circumstances (given that they have never impacted on their performance as an auditor) be made public unless they want them to?

Question #2: Why is this being suggested of society auditors and not of Sabbats, OP? Auditors are not hired by the SU. Sabbats are. Why should their drug habits or lack thereof be inconsequential when they also deal with SU money (and a lot more of it than an individual society) despite the fact that they're being paid to do the job in the first place and are therefore employees of the students?

I find your curiosity misplaced and frankly disturbing in its acuteness.

Answer 1: Drug testing has been around a while now and for most illicit substances false positives generally do not show up when an individual has taken non-illicit medication.

Answer 2: I am suggesting auditors out of curiosity, sure why not sabbats too.

I wouldn't be so easily disturbed, those in positions of responsibility must be accountable and total transparency must be adhered to. If they have nothing untoward to hide, there should be no problems.

I'm not suggesting the results of these drug tests should make it past the societies officer, either. A real societies officer that is. Not the joke of system we have in place at the moment.

pretty*monster

mloc wrote:

I wouldn't be so easily disturbed, those in positions of responsibility must be accountable and total transparency must be adhered to. If they have nothing untoward to hide, there should be no problems.

Why do you think that a positive result of a drug test would give any grounds to suggest an auditor had misused society fund? As I have detailed already, society funds are already looked over quite thoroughly externally (not to mention the fact that any auditor intent on embezzlement would almost certainly need at least one another senior committee member in on the scam).

Lets be honest, a good number of students have used drugs, it doesn't necessarily make them thieves. And not taking drugs doesn't necessarily mean you're squeaky clean either.
You'd pretty much be solving the wrong problem, not to mention raising a whole host of serious ethical problems.

Sangre

mloc wrote:

I wouldn't be so easily disturbed, those in positions of responsibility must be accountable and total transparency must be adhered to. If they have nothing untoward to hide, there should be no problems.

What a ridiculous justification for the grossest of privacy violations. Not only is it grossly intrusive it is a form of assault if done without permission.

If the world's legal systems took your attitude we'd have random strip searches, drug tests and house searches. Why need a warrant if you've nothing to hide?

You've also completely failed to point out how a positive drugs tests has ANY correlation to misuse of societies funds. A drug user is now automatically a thief? You're living in a dream world if you don't think the vast majority of student have done or are doing drugs. It rarely impedes their professional or educational duties.

cast_iron

Dontico wrote:

intent to take isnt illegal. intent to sell is.

First off, nobody missed the first time you said it, but clearly you are looking for a response, so I will oblige by telling you how wrong you are (again).

In certain circumstances, it is illegal to have consumed drugs. Take driving whilst having illegal drugs in your bloodstream. The offence is having the drugs in your system (not having possessed them 3 hours earlier). Also, as someone said, there is a fundamental implied logic that one possessed them to consume them.

As to the OP, has to be one of the most ridiculous ideas I've seen in a while. Please point out the correlation between taking drugs and misappropriating college funds. If you can't, then stop posting more tripe.
So, the Bursar, Head of Sport/Societies and everyone else that decides how money is divided out around college should be tested also?

You've further demonstrated how ridiculous the question is with the stupidity of the poll answer choices. The question implies that some illegal drugs are okay to take, but other illegal drugs aren't!
Yes, the law is an ass, but I think you've demonstrated that you aren't much better.

Sangre

How could you prove intent to take anyway?

'your honour, i believe the defendant felt like getting stoned'

mloc

Sangre wrote:

How could you prove intent to take anyway?

'your honour, i believe the defendant felt like getting stoned'

lol, quite true.

I wasn't blaming anyone for anything, I was just curious of people's opinions.

melekalikimaka

your all druggies in my book ucd riffraff, all doped up on your smack and whatnot

The_Minister

LOL. I go away for the weekend, I come back and
1. You've turned this place into an Orwellian nightmare
2. B&L are now trying to run all the societies
3. all the candidates for the executives have changed again.

passive

The_Minister LOL. I go away for the weekend, I come back and
1. You've turned this place into an Orwellian nightmare
2. B&L are now trying to run all the societies
3. all the candidates for the executives have changed again.

they've been missing your controversial figure. whip them back into shape! I'll stay in the background and make occasional witty quips...

Blush_01

While passing around the cheap vodka and dancing under the stars? You leave one hippy commune and come home to find the internet is headed the same way.

Dontico

mloc wrote:

you can't take them without being in possession of them... hence illegal. I suppose you could theoretically have taken them without your knowledge, but in general having taken drugs would be a good indicator of having been in possession of them.

that may make sence but it still isnt the law. if you catch someone with a big bag of E, you then have evidenc ethat they did indeed have possesion. my understanding of the law that it only takes a little bit of E to considered intent to sell.
if someone sees you taking E. the evidence is destroyed cause its in your stomach.

also like to point out in the case of weed. you can have a certain amount of weed and not be arrested for it, cause a very small amount wouldnt be considered intent to sell.

also if taking drugs was illegal, it would make rehabs very hard to run.

Dontico

cast_iron wrote:

In certain circumstances, it is illegal to have consumed drugs. Take driving whilst having illegal drugs in your bloodstream. The offence is having the drugs in your system (not having possessed them 3 hours earlier). Also, as someone said, there is a fundamental implied logic that one possessed them to consume them.

its also illegeal to drink and drive. but i wont be arrested for owning a create of beer in my house.

snuffles84

i think its a matter of hypocracy that if the students' union is so concerned about the welfare of students and is to be a leading light for students then surely the elected officers should not be seen to condone let alone themselves consume illegal substances of any kind.

if they've nothing to hide surely they wouldn't mind a drugs test?

the students' union should be at the forefront of campaigning for an end to the soft drug culture in our univeristy and society.

the same goes for auditors. these people are in positions of responsibility and should be beyond reproach.

humbert

snuffles84 wrote:

the students' union should be at the forefront of campaigning for an end to the soft drug culture in our univeristy and society.

Why should they? Would it not be proper to see if the students themselves would want this?

pretty*monster

snuffles84 wrote:

i think its a matter of hypocracy that if the students' union is so concerned about the welfare of students and is to be a leading light for students then surely the elected officers should not be seen to condone let alone themselves consume illegal substances of any kind.

Indeed, god forbid that university students should take drugs. That would be unheard of.

snuffles84

humbert wrote:

Why should they? Would it not be proper to see if the students themselves would want this?

are you proposing that the SU hold a referendum every time they wish to come up with a new policy or should they just put a poll up on a website like this? By your logic the SU couldn't formulate policy on their own.
Should the SU not be proactively looking out for the interests of students? If the SU can decide to ban coke and nestle from campus why shouldn't they campaign to end this soft (and other) drug culture? Aside from the obvious dangers to UCD students' welfare directly arising from drug use, in a wider way students are contributing to gangland problems by essentially funding and encouraging drug barrons. surely this is something worthy of taking a stand against?

abelard

snuffles84 wrote:

are you proposing that the SU hold a referendum every time they wish to come up with a new policy or should they just put a poll up on a website like this? By your logic the SU couldn't formulate policy on their own.
Should the SU not be proactively looking out for the interests of students? If the SU can decide to ban coke and nestle from campus why shouldn't they campaign to end this soft (and other) drug culture? Aside from the obvious dangers to UCD students' welfare directly arising from drug use, in a wider way students are contributing to gangland problems by essentially funding and encouraging drug barrons. surely this is something worthy of taking a stand against?

Well firstly, there was a referendum for Coke and Nestlé, so the SU didn't just "decide".

But I don't think the SU should tell the student's not to take drugs, it's not in the habit of telling people what to do (believe it or not), and in fairness, how many people around our age would do something just because they're told. What should be done, in my opinion, is educating students on the possible dangers and repercussions of drug use, allowing students to make an informed and responsible decision themselves.

snuffles84

abelard wrote:

What should be done, in my opinion, is educating students on the possible dangers and repercussions of drug use, allowing students to make an informed and responsible decision themselves.

well that's worked out really well so far.
why didn't they just 'educate' everyone about the bad things that would happen in columbia if we buy coke? they took action because they wanted to do something about it and this is the only way to get through to people a lot of the time.
people are already made aware of the risks of drugs, smoking, etc but people still do it. the difference is that the drugs issue is arguably much more important than the coke ban and i think the SU should take and be seen to take a tougher stand on it.
either that or they should stop telling me not to drink coke.

abelard

snuffles84 wrote:

well that's worked out really well so far.
why didn't they just 'educate' everyone about the bad things that would happen in columbia if we buy coke? they took action because they wanted to do something about it and this is the only way to get through to people a lot of the time.
people are already made aware of the risks of drugs, smoking, etc but people still do it. the difference is that the drugs issue is arguably much more important than the coke ban and i think the SU should take and be seen to take a tougher stand on it.
either that or they should stop telling me not to drink coke.

This has been said so many times, but you are not being told you can't buy Coke. You can still buy Coke on campus with ease. A referendum of the student body decided that they did not want to sell Coke in their shops. That they did not want to directly fund an organisation with, at best, questionable practices. A lot of people still disagree with the decision, it is up to them to organise another referendum if they want to see Coke sold by the SU again. If you really want to buy Coke, just get it in Centra, 911, Insomnia, any of the vending machines, etc.

Anyway that's beside the point. You say yourself that people are aware of the risks but do it anyway. So what more can we do? Beyond what's already been done, where can we go without crossing a line of breaching peoples rights (most importantly) and looking even more righteous and preachy.

I mean I think it's acceptable for the Union to say "you shouldn't take drugs", but not ok to say "you can't take drugs", if you get me.

Blush_01

snuffles, I think your initial problem is actually the distinction between SU and Society.

hullaballoo

I swore I wasn't going to reply to this thread, but here goes.

I think snuffles has a fair idea where the dividing line between SU and societies lies, but his point is that the SU needs to take a stance on it. Perhaps snuffles, unused to boards.ie, may have been better starting a spin-off thread on the topic. But I think I can forgive him, just this once.

Stabshauptmann

mloc wrote:

What do you think, should society auditors who have to deal with significant amounts of college funds (with, to be honest, no transparency) be tested for drugs?

A)College societies do not deal with great sums of college money, usually its less than €1000
B)There is a hell of a lot of transparency.

Money has to go through a bank account, can only go out in cheques, and a member of staff must be a signatory.
The accounts are presented at the AGM to the ordinary members
Are inspected by the societies officer
And are inspected by a finance committee

c)Tested for drugs? Why?!
You typically dont test students or employees in the real world, why some random volunteers?

You seem to be implying that there are auditors embezzling money, what makes you think that? Any particular society pop into your head when you made that post?