The State - News from Feb. 11, 1987

A judge in Richmond issued a preliminary injunction halting mandatory drug testing at a refinery because the testing was random, rather than based on a reasonable suspicion of drug use. Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Richard Flier said that California case law has maintained that any invasion of privacy must be balanced by “some suspicion of drug abuse” and that the program set up by the Pacific Refining Co., about 10 miles east of San Francisco, called for blanket testing of its work force of 100. Flier said he was not ruling that there is no need for workplace drug testing in California or that it is illegal but that provisions of the Pacific plan “fail to pass muster.”