LOL! Yes, not one of the brighter things I've written, but then it usually does involve hovering. :o

Continuous Duty Overnight. The FARs state that you have to have at least eight hours of rest before a new duty block can start. Rest being defined as the time from when you block in to when your next check in is. I always get a little nervous when they do that thing where they move back the push-back time by a few minutes in order to accommodate crew rest... it means the crew has had a maximum of 6 hours of sleep, probably less.

So when you have a CDO it is the same 'duty block' as the night before, because there was less than the 8 hours.

Bored at work so i just discovered this post...
 

why o why do policies like this exist? i know of no other country in the world that tests their FA's. Can someone explain the logic to this??

Because flight attendants fall under this:

The Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991 requires drug and alcohol testing of safety-sensitive transportation employees in aviation, trucking, railroads, mass transit, pipelines and other transportation industries. DOT publishes rules on who must conduct drug and alcohol tests, how to conduct those tests and what procedures to use when testing. These regulations cover all transportation employers, safety-sensitive transportation employees and service agents -roughly 12.1 million people. Encompassed in 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 40, the Office of Drug & Alcohol Policy & Compliance (ODAPC) publishes, implements and provides authoritative interpretations of these rules.

The US is so crazy about drug testing I think there are even fast food workers that get tested.

I'm not a huge fan of drug testing policies - but I can see where they are advantageous and necessary in certain industries. Aviation certainly falls in that category, imo.

Do you really want a high FA on board when you find out the guy next to you is an angry drunk? Or when you have a heart attack in the middle of your flight? Or when you need to evacuate a burning aircraft?

I don't. I could care less what the burger flipper at Wendy's is smoking, but I definitely prefer to have sober FA's.

Actually, it remains much longer. Sometimes as long as 90 days. The older tests were not able to find it after about 30 days, but the newer tests can detect it for much longer. Also, the amount of THC metabolite (they don't actually test for THC, which is gone in a few minutes) stored in fat cells is different in each person. A heavy smoker who is overweight will still test positive, long after a light smoker who is thin tests clean, even if they quit on the same day.

Random drug testing
 

Random drug testing is the most effective format with a growing number of corporations using this form of testing. The objective of a random drug test is deterrence, as the threat of detection is much higher versus other testing methods. The goal of random testing is to discourage drug use among employees by not telling anyone who or when or where they are to be tested in advance. The DOT has laid out specific guidelines and regulations regarding random drug testing that is followed by all major transportation agencies including FAA, FMCSA, FRA, PHMSA and USCG.