September 3, 2001

9:57 AM

I tell you, the United States is truly the land of opportunity. Where else but in America could a man make a fortune selling his urine through the mail for $12.50 per ounce?
posted by Steven Den Beste (23 comments total)

It's liquid gold, I tell you, liquid gold.
One man's sewage is another man's treasure.
It's not a problem, it's an opportunity.

(Any other applicable aphorisms?)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:58 AM on September 3, 2001

*sigh*
only in America.... I wonder if he has lots of customers, and how does he advertise himself?

"CLEAN PEE! CLEAN PEE! COME AND GET IT, FRESH CLEAN PEE!"
posted by martz at 10:15 AM on September 3, 2001

"Need to pee in a cup for your job? Buy mine, and YOU'RE IN!"
posted by kindall at 10:34 AM on September 3, 2001

Makes perfect sense to me. Guy uses drugs. Afraid of drug tes. Buys some clean piss. Gets job. Makes money to easily cover cost of pee he bought.
Wherever there is a Need there is someone out there to fill that need for money. Sperem needed? lots of types will sell theirs. Blood needed? Why give it free when you can sell it. Qucik sex? girls out there who will do it for money.
posted by Postroad at 10:35 AM on September 3, 2001

Shades of Withnail and I, Postroad...


But I'll leave the "taking the piss" gags to other people.
posted by holgate at 10:38 AM on September 3, 2001

Yeah. And that's an amazing story. The blokes a genius. As with most money spinning ideas.. So simple, yet so unthinkable.. Yet unlike the ideas that spawned catseyes, yo-yo's or milk cartons, this being unthinkable in the second sense of the word.

This isn't the first time, and i doubt it'll be the last, that the MeFi community has had cause to link to the utter horror that is... The Jesus Diet :/ [courtesy of rodii a couple of moons ago]
posted by Kino at 10:40 AM on September 3, 2001

I can't complain about the guy who gave Fox News' O'Reilly an A**hole Award.
posted by tamim at 11:46 AM on September 3, 2001

Wasn't this posted several months ago? The guy sold urine and plastic penises?

Anyway, seems pretty silly to me.
posted by tiaka at 12:20 PM on September 3, 2001

Wired are taking the piss surely?!

(Sorry Holgate, couldn't resist!)
posted by tomcosgrave at 1:21 PM on September 3, 2001

If anyone wants it, I'll sell my urine.
posted by DragonBoy at 2:29 PM on September 3, 2001

I can't complain about the guy who gave Fox News' O'Reilly an A**hole Award.

One of the few O'Reilly episodes I saw was when he was on. In fact that's when I decided there's nothing there but rhetoric, pandering to the right, and an egomaniac. O'Reilly did nothing but shout at the guy calling him something like an exploiter/criminal and a profiteer!

The urine guy (hey I dont remember his name) was trying to make a couple points about the legality of urine tests, how there is not privacy guarantee for most tests, how blacklisting works, etc.
posted by skallas at 3:06 PM on September 3, 2001

Right, that's it I'm going to contact the local farmers about possible faecal to fertilizer retail solutions like these guys
posted by ilikepaperandpens at 4:30 PM on September 3, 2001

American Beauty should have given you an idea as to why selling urine could be a good business. This guy seems to have really picked up on it.

Then again, isn't this highly unethical? After all, you'd only want this if you were trying to evade a drug test, urine alcohol test, or were trying to con your doctor into thinking you're okay when you're not. Either way.. the result isn't too good for you.

I really can't see 'privacy' as being the problem here. If you accept to take the test anyway (whether you use this guy's stuff or not) then that's the privacy being broken already.. and if you're doing weed and you can't bear to think that might lose you a job, that's your problem?
posted by wackybrit at 7:10 PM on September 3, 2001

And.. I'm surprised its legal to sell a biological substance through the mail without a licence. You try selling your own home made food via the mail! What next.. feces through the mail?
posted by wackybrit at 7:12 PM on September 3, 2001

isn't this highly unethical?

Yeah too right.. He mustn't have much of a social conscience. Either that or he's incapable of evaluating the potential implications of his actions.. for every one person who uses his wares to dodge a works drug test a whole site and its staff is put in danger - be it a factory, a nuclear power plant, whatever - and perhaps surrounding areas of thousands/millions of people, not to mention the welfare of unsuspecting consumers worldwide. He's recklessly and indiscriminately undermining every single industries safety regulations each time he pisses his liquid gold into a plastic bag.

I'm surprised its legal to sell a biological substance through the mail without a licence. You try selling your own home made food via the mail!

Ha.. People aren't meant to eat this geezas products Wackybrit! Read the packet next time.. and go clean your teeth!.

feces through the mail?

That sounds about right.. Everytime the postman comes he brings some shit i didn't ask for.
posted by Kino at 8:22 PM on September 3, 2001

> isn't this highly unethical?

Compared to forcing people to submit urine for analysis, it's a minor offense.
posted by pracowity at 11:44 PM on September 3, 2001

Yeah too right.. He mustn't have much of a social conscience. Either that or he's incapable of evaluating the potential implications of his actions..

Drug tests measure what you do outside of work, Kino. Toss in the lack of privacy and humiliation of being forced to pee into a cup and the question of ethics may be on your side. I don't like the assumption that if THC is found me in that I'm not worthy of working at some tech sector job because I'm a hopeless addict.

Its easy to fall for the hackneyed "Think of the children" line. Bus driver sneaks past test, kills 10,000 children that kind of thing. If you're f'd up out of your mind your supervisor better notice it. The same way she would notice it if you were "just" drunk.

Tests are not necessarily needed and usually worthless considering there's more than a few ways to cheat. I wonder if they've had a real impact on safety and if that impact is worth the violation of privacy.
posted by skallas at 12:20 AM on September 4, 2001

Jello Biafra did a satirical routine all about this well over a decade ago. Its on " No More Cocoons".
posted by Anchovy at 7:06 AM on September 4, 2001

This is new? Riders on the Tour de France have been doing this for decades. ;) Apparantly the best method was to have the urine in a balloon, inserted into your rectum, with a small tube running from the balloon and taped in place just under your testicles.

Did I mention that competitive cycling is considered one of the most drugged-up sports around?
posted by jackelder at 7:13 AM on September 4, 2001

Skallas - I see your point regarding privacy, human rights and the humiliation factor of having to piss in a cup. Also about drug testing inefficiency and whether effectiveness levels in practice warrant its usage. If the current implementation of the testing procedure doesn't work then they had better just find a new way of doing it. Which i hope is something that's monitored by whoevers job it is to do so (and that they're monitored in monitoring it). But at the end of the day - that's their job and we aren't safety regulators. I think of it this way - safety is a highly professional field, it's taken very seriously in places where it's critical to have it, and I, perhaps a little optimistically, have an innate sense of faith in that process; It's one of the good things in life. I live in a highly industrialised area - there's always dangers here, and sometimes incidents. The more they do to ensure safety the better. It's ok for us to discuss civil rights concerns as human beings from an employee perspective about out of work activities being "none of their fookin' bizznizz!" but if it's proven (and i'm not saying whether it is or isn't) that regular use of certain substances outside of working hours affects our performance significantly enough for us to be a danger to ourselves and others whilst on the job then i'm all for employees who need to be alert on a Wednesday afternoon, or whatever, being tested for any substances they may have used recently that are proven to stick around in our blood for weeks/months and degrade our reaction times, perceptions, intellectual abilities, etc.

If something outside of work is damaging performance within it that becomes an external element of the regulators safety net. If it becomes a big enough element that it undermines the whole ensuring-safety-at-work process it is then justified. It's unacceptable for people in highly sensitive jobs, jobs where a mistake can cause a catastrophe, to be anything less than alert, and from what i can see (given my very limited knowledge of biochemistry) the concept of compulsory drug testing helps ensure that we don't slide down the slippery slope toward standards one would more expect to see in a less civilised, more chaotic third world country; The kinda place they wear out their car horns before they do their brakes. ("ahhhh.. u mean New York!..").

I suspect more attention needs to be payed to what roles justify requiring such testing and that seems to be where your points on this originate. I agree urine testing shouldn't be used merely as a measure to increase workforce efficiency (or to ignorantly see to it that 'no druggies are around') in jobs where potential danger isn't a valid justification for the process, which then of course becomes a relative issue that employers could take to extremes. I think maybe testing shouldn't be allowed unless required by law, and then it enters an arena where it can be seen to that everybodys rights are protected.
posted by Kino at 10:36 AM on September 4, 2001

his product was outlawed in his home state after it pissed off a local lawmaker.

Ah, well, I suppose it was obvious that that was going to happen.
posted by swell at 1:31 PM on September 4, 2001

That's nothing. These guys have been selling their fecal matter over the web for at least a year: shitinabox. My heroes.
posted by Vek at 2:18 PM on September 4, 2001

'after it pissed off a local lawmaker'

Musta been a faulty bag.. oh, that'd be 'pissed on' wouldn't it.

'My heroes'

Superb linkage Yek. They could do with upgrading the 'Shitinabox Classic' product to include a well placed, wireless webcam for live, as it happens coverage of the oh-so dramatic parcel opening event. >__<
posted by Kino at 3:13 PM on September 4, 2001