Pre-employment drug screening

[chrono10]

I went to interview with a company. A few days later they had me come up for pre-employment drug testing. (No problems there I knew I would have to do it eventually)

My question is can an employer make you take a drug test with out first offering you a job. I know the drug test can be made as a condition of employment meaning if you pass the drug test you will get the job.

I started to get curious about this when I was at the doctors office. Before taking the drug screening I had to fill out a few forms. On one of the forms I had to check a box with the reason for needing a drug test. The closest option was “Post Offer Employment Drug Screening”. This tells me that they would have had to offer me the job in order to take the drug test.

A few days later after the results came from the drug screening in I went for my second interview with the company. Finally after all of that I got an email saying that they were not going to be hiring at this time blah blah blah.

Overall I just graduated and I will probably be going through a lot of interviews and drug tests, so I was just curious as to how pre employment drug screening worked for future reference.

[Mr. Knowitall]

The Illinois Human Rights Act provides,

For purposes of this Act, a test to determine the illegal use of drugs shall not be considered a medical examination. Nothing in this Act shall be construed to encourage, prohibit, or authorize the conducting of drug testing for the illegal use of drugs by job applicants or employees or making employment decisions based on such test results.