Was this a drug test or an intelligence test? One has to wonder, since these two potential draftees were given weeks of notice, not only as to the exact time of the test but also as to the type of drug to be tested for and the amount of time the drug residues would remain in the body. Hello!

It may lead more regular workers to wonder whether they might also be subjected to random drug tests. The short answer from the Supremes? Probably not. While pre-employment drug testing is perfectly legal — ask Ross Perot’s old employees at EDS — most courts have ruled that you can’t just test current employees willy-nilly. You have to have a really good reason – such as safety because you’re flying planes or conducting trains. (And while we’re on that subject, please don’t text while you’re driving trains, okay? But I digress…)

The courts evidently reasoned that if you don’t want to get drug-tested, you can just decide not to apply to a new company. But with your current employer, you shouldn’t have to be subjected to such nasty surprises as random drug tests. So… we shouldn’t expect all our managers to be showing up on Monday mornings with little cups.

Tell you the truth, it’s no picnic to handle an issue like this. Most of us can grouse about Joe Shmo coming in late and leaving early, or watching Suzy Smith zone out at her desk, and we might even cheer on the guy getting loopy at a company function, as long as it doesn’t affect our department or client. And it’s true that there are head honchos with delusions of grandeur that rival the best high on the market. But in the end, even mild hallucinations probably don’t have a place at the conference table.

On the other hand, there are lots of stories of false positives (some experts say 62 percent of all tests!) and disastrous misinterpretations of medical conditions or insensitive handling of situations that might involve substance abuse, but which instead lead to lawsuits.

There is a trove of ancient lore that supposedly connects drugs and war (and sports are often cast as ceremonial war). Some believe the fury of the Norse Berserker warriors was drug-induced, while the word “assassin” may be associated with the word “hashish” (though if it was used, it was apparently a recruitment tool rather than a performance enhancement substance).

But we are older and wiser now and we have learned that sobriety is a pre-condition to safety on the assembly line, to clear thought in business plans, and to the running of meetings that don’t end in brawls. Everyday ordinary passion and conflict can be good things, but only when the executive function of the brain is still operative.

And seriously. Even if we’re just talking first impressions, it is — at best — counterintuitive to ignore the reality of drug-testing when you’re just starting out, when you could be tested as a job candidate. Leaving aside any other considerations (arrest, disbarment, excommunication, or in the case of teen workers, getting permanently grounded), if it’s a good idea not to walk into your job interview trailing cannabis fumes, it’s at least as smart to prepare both the resume and one’s bodily fluids for review.