I am coming to Taiwan soon. I’ve read that getting a resident visa through one’s legal employment entails a health exam, which includes a drug test. Does anybody know what happens if you test positive for marijuana use at said drug test? (One site I checked out claimed that they test for other drugs but not marijuana, but that sounds improbable to me…) Do they deport you? I don’t intend to test positive but I’d like to know what the consequences are.
-Hydrating like crazy
I don’t know of the actual consequences, but they’ll probably just end up deporting you; maybe even restrict you from re-entering for a certain period of time. As far as I know, the requirement for an exam depends on at which Ministry you apply. Basically, if you are coming here to be a teacher, expect an exam. I have never had to take an exam because I’ve never worked as a teacher. My applications go through the Ministry of Economic Affairs. My guess as part of the reason is they figure if you are going to work with a mass of people in an enclosed room, like a bunch of kids, they want a healthy drug-free person. Makes sense.
Could you please list your current address and social security number and I will look into it for you.
Minister of Foreign Affairs
You can probably relax. They test for amphetamines and for morphine, which means that chemical highs are a no-no, as well as heroin and opium. I don’t know if ecstasy is covered under their tests, but why take chances? Stick with the organic stuff and you’ll be okay…
And remember, always “Pass the Dutchie from the left hand side…”
I’m not sure of the official rules as I’m a clean living born again animist, but a couple of good friends of mine came here not long ago from Thailand, where they had been enjoying a 2-month smack binge.
When they failed their health checks at the Renai hospital, the clerk just told them they had too much morphine in their systems and that they should come back in a couple of weeks and get tested again.
YMMV.
Backing up what Sandman said. They don’t test for Marijuana. My friend did his health check (at Renai Hospital in Taipei) the day after having a smoke and was fine. I would have thought E would show up as having amphetamines or morphine in most cases, but a couple of weeks seems fine for that too.
Bri
The strangest thing happened to me when I went to get my health test. I had just arrived in Taipei and was getting an ARC for the company I was just starting at. I teach English, so I had to get a health test.
So, I went to the hospital early in the morning, and even though it wasn’t busy then, I was still a little overwhelmed by the whole ordeal. I am pretty terrified of blood tests to begin with and seeing a few people in a cafeteria style line-up to get a blood test seemed primitive to me (a Canadian used to having private rooms for needles and the like). I feared that I would be injected by a dirty needle or something. But in the end, I got through the whole thing just fine.
What was not fine were the test results. I don’t drink alcohol that often and I am not a big drug user, yet somehow, my test results (urine results only) tested positive for morphine! Can you believe it! Where would a person even get morphine, especially in a new country where even the smallest task seemed difficult.
The only thing I had taken for months was one multi vitamin and 2 vitamin C per day. I didn’t even drink coffee until I got a morning job out here.
Of course, I told my boss that those results couldn’t be right. It was impossible. She believed me right away. Perhaps this was because my outward appearance portrays somewhat of a dull, conservative, honest person whose face can be read like a book (which “sigh” I guess is true). I definitely do not have the face of a party animal or heavy drug user.
So she asked for a sample of each of my vitamins (which was annoying because they were expensive) to take to some test place. In the end, I guess she received no explanation for the problem.
What she did next was sent me back to the hospital to take the whole test over again. But I had to sign up as if it was my first time there and none of the other stuff ever happened. Great, I thought. I feared this place the first time I went through it!
Anyway, my new health test results were clean of any impure conditions and I got my ARC. Who knows what happened to those other records. It’s weird.
I have made a few speculations on what might have happened, though. One is that the hospital simply mixed my samples up with some one else’s or someone was sleeping on the job and checked off the wrong box.
The other was that someone else at the hospital who did have a drug problem, and who was also getting tested, switched the samples. The reason this seems very plausible was because when I went to hand in the samples, only a small light sticker was placed on each vial. The nurse didn’t even stick them on with much force before she hurriedly told me to go for an X-ray and then whisked herself away to attend to other duties. It seemed to be just a temporary solution, like when you place a piece of tape on the end of the table for immediate future use.
Another disturbing factor was that the vials were placed into a tray that rested on the counter against a pillar of wall that divided the left side of the counter from the right side. My samples were arranged closest to the seating area, not that there were many people there that morning, but I didn’t feel too good about my private urine samples being on display like that.
After that, I went to find the X-ray place. I went the wrong way at first and had to walk back past the blood test/urine sample area to go the proper way.
I remember being uncomfortable that there were no hospital personnel looking after the samples. In fact there were no nurses at all on the right side of the counter and the staff on the left side of the counter certainly wouldn’t be able to see what was going on around the tray on the right side of the counter. This of course just added to my present state of unease.
In the end, it turns out that I was right to feel uneasy. But, who knows what really happened there. All I know is that I hate that hospital. The whole place and all of its methodology bothers me. I hope I don’t have to go there again.
Which hospital was it? In which city?
A foreign friend of mine was taken to the police station last night and tested for drugs. What are his rights and what are the options for him? thanks very much for any help.