Ahmed Mohamed never imagined that his career in the petroleum sector, which had spanned 23 years, would end suddenly, depriving him of his steady income and costing his family its financial stability. The shock drained their savings and led them to sell their belongings and then to sink into debt, while his son was forced to give up his dream of university to become the family’s sole breadwinner.
Ahmed had suffered a work accident in 2010 that left him with an injury amounting to a 25% disability. Since then, he had regularly received periodic treatment through the company’s medical network, including strong painkillers, among them the narcotic tramadol, which was officially dispensed to him by the Ministry of Health to treat chronic bone problems.
After the issuance of Law No. 73 of 2021, known in the media as the “dismissal for drug use” law, Ahmed went with his medical papers to the competent department, asking for his health condition to be attached to the drug-test file. But the surprise came when the test was carried out without the documents being attached, and the result came back positive for tramadol.
Ahmed tells Zawia3: “I told the director of the medical department what had happened, and he reassured me, saying: sign the report, and we will settle the matter at forensic medicine. I tried to ask to go to forensic medicine immediately, but he refused and assured me that everything would be resolved later. I signed, but I was later surprised to find the test result confirmed as positive, which led directly to a decision dismissing me from work.”
Ahmed did not stop there; he knocked on every possible door, from the medical department, to the chairman of the board, to the General Petroleum Union. Although the chairman acknowledged that an injustice had occurred, he refused to intervene, saying: “I know you have been wronged, but there is nothing I can do. If I back you, I face a fine of up to EGP 100,000 and a full year in prison. It’s true that I like you, but I don’t like you more than I like myself.”
Article 6 of Law No. 73 of 2021 stipulates: “Anyone who deliberately allows a person proven to have used drugs to occupy one of the posts in the bodies referred to in Article 2 of this Law, or to continue in it, shall be punished by imprisonment and a fine of not less than EGP 100,000 and not exceeding EGP 200,000, or by one of these two penalties.”
Things did not stop there for Ahmed; he had been preparing to undergo spinal surgery a few days before the test, but the dismissal decision turned his life upside down. His salary was suddenly cut off despite his financial commitments and the loans around which he had arranged his life, and he was deprived of his end-of-service bonus and his contractual pension. He later tried to work at a private contracting company, but he could not complete a full working day because of his health condition. Over time, he was forced to sell his new car, then his wife’s and children’s jewellery, until the savings he had kept for his daughters’ marriages evaporated in an attempt to pay the instalments and loans owed to the bank. Today Ahmed lives on the support of his brothers, who collect a monthly sum for him to help his family, while his son’s dream of entering the Faculty of Engineering was lost because the family could not afford the cost of private lessons, so he left university and took a job in the private sector to support the household.
Ahmed describes this law as “job slaughter”, saying: “How can the law slaughter an employee the first time, without giving him a chance to defend himself? Even a drug dealer has levels of litigation, but an employee whose test result comes back positive is dismissed immediately, with no way back. This is not justice.” He stresses that challenging the constitutionality of the law has become a necessity, especially since what happened to him was not an individual injustice but a tragedy that has struck dozens of others, who found themselves out of their jobs in a single moment, with no chance and no mercy.
In a similar context, Mohamed Salah, who spent years working as a low-voltage technician at the South Cairo Electricity Distribution Company, was expecting a promotion in mid-2025. On 31 May this year, he underwent a routine drug test, and to his surprise the result was positive. He tells Zawia3: “I don’t use anything, but the committee affiliated with the Anti-Addiction Fund told me that if I went to forensic medicine, I would not get my chance at work back. I rejected their advice; I knew that giving in meant confessing to a crime I did not commit.”
On 26 June, Mohamed formally took his case to forensic medicine, but before the confirmatory result came out, a decision was issued suspending him for three months with half his salary deducted. A few weeks later, on 20 July to be precise, the decision to dismiss him permanently was issued, without payment of any salary, not even half the salary for the month in which he had been performing his work in full. Mohamed adds: “Since that day, my family and I have been on the street. Everywhere I go looking for work, they ask me: why did you leave your previous job? And however hard I try to explain that the test was a mistake or an injustice, no one believes me. No one wants an employee who was dismissed on the grounds of drug use.”
But the tragedy did not stop at the loss of the job; Mohamed and many of his dismissed colleagues found themselves facing bank loans they could no longer repay, lawsuits filed against them, the threat of prison and closed doors to work. He says bitterly: “We are fighting on many fronts at the same time.” His health condition reveals a deeper side of the tragedy. He explains: “I have been ill for years. I have had more than one operation on the cartilage in my knee, and days before the test I was taking medication for my bones and my chest. I asked them to attach the medical prescriptions to the sample report, but they refused.” Today Mohamed suffers from continuous bleeding, and his doctor has asked him to undergo an endoscopy of the stomach and colon, but he cannot cover the cost. In a voice in which fear mixes with despair, he says: “I fear that the illness is cancer at an advanced stage, but I don’t even have the money to check on myself.”
Psychological and Economic Pressures
The psychological and economic pressures facing the dismissed employees have led Mohamed to describe the decision as akin to a death sentence, and he cites a painful incident: “A colleague of ours died last month. He suffered a heart attack from the intensity of grief and pressure, and he was scheduled to undergo open-heart surgery at the state’s expense, but before the procedures were completed, he had passed away.”
As for Mohamed Youssef, a 45-year-old engineer who spent more than 23 years working at a petroleum company, he was preparing to be promoted to head of department. In April 2023, he went to Cairo to take the drug test, a basic condition for promotion, but what he witnessed that day shattered his career dreams and destroyed his family’s life. Mohamed recounts that the testing site was teeming with chaos and confusion, as this was the first batch of employees to be tested for promotions, and he tells Zawia3: “I didn’t take the test at all; no urine sample came out of me. An argument broke out between me and the nurse because of his degrading manner; he was addressing us as if we were people off the street. I told him: we are engineers and managers, so let your manner of address be more respectful. He then asked me to step aside, claiming that he would call me later, but he did not, and at the end of the day I was surprised to find that he had written up a report against me accusing me of tampering with the sample.” Youssef returned to his company confused, but he did not give up; he took another test at a government hospital at his own expense to prove his innocence, and the result came back negative, but the company did not recognise it. Days later, the decision to dismiss him permanently was issued, even though he had submitted everything proving that he was free of any narcotic substances.
Under Article 5 of the law, proof of a deliberate refusal to take the test during service, or of evading it without an acceptable excuse, is a cause requiring termination of service, and the executive regulations set out the rules and controls necessary to implement the provisions of this article. Mohamed adds, explaining: “I have been working at the company since 2000. I started on a temporary contract for eight years, then I was made permanent in 2008, until I was dismissed in 2023. Everything I had built collapsed suddenly. I was supporting my mother, my sister and my children, and suddenly I found myself without a source of livelihood. It’s true that I managed to find work at a private factory, without a permanent contract, to feed my children, but other colleagues found no way out. Some of them took their own lives, some died of grief, and the banks are chasing all of us because of the loans we took out against our salaries.” He asks: “Even if we assume that one of us really did make a mistake, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to punish him by withholding his profit share or deducting part of his salary, instead of killing him with dismissal? In the past, an employee whose sample proved positive was suspended for three months on half pay, then given another chance, but now dismissal has become the final verdict.”
Mohamed Youssef believes that Law 73 of 2021 is unconstitutional and that its application has been harsh and unjust; after his dismissal he could no longer obtain another formal job because of having a “record of dismissal for drug use”. And when he managed to work at a factory, he found himself working without social insurance or rights. He concludes his conversation with Zawia3 saying: “A person should not be judged by a single mistake, but by his whole career. I served my company for more than two decades without any penalties, and then I ended up this way.” He considers that the constitutional challenge filed against the law has restored a little hope to thousands of employees dismissed on the basis of this law, which has left their families facing the unknown.
The same shock was experienced by Abdel Hamid Mohamed, an employee in the petroleum sector, who never imagined that his years of work would end in a moment with a sudden dismissal decision, and that he would lose his salary, on which his family depends as its sole source of income and which he also uses to meet his financial obligations and the instalments of a loan he obtained from the bank against his monthly salary. But the financial stability his family had enjoyed collapsed suddenly when he was informed that the test had shown he had used a narcotic substance. He tells Zawia3: “I’m a man who doesn’t even smoke cigarettes, so how can the result show positive for hashish use? There were 213 of us taking the test at the same time amid chaos and disorder, and I am certain that my urine sample was switched, yet the decision to dismiss me was issued without mercy.”
The damage did not stop at Abdel Hamid losing his job; he was preparing for his daughter’s wedding, but after his income was cut off he could not afford to buy what she needed for her marriage, and her engagement was broken off as a result. He adds: “My daughter has still not married because of what happened to me, and my son, who finished his military service, found himself without support after I became unable to help him.” Since then, the family’s losses have kept bleeding; Abdel Hamid was forced to sell his car and everything he owned in an attempt to pay the loan instalments, but he did not manage to get rid of the debt, and today he faces a lawsuit from the bank that threatens him with imprisonment. He comments sadly: “After being a respected man living a dignified life, I am now waiting for a prison sentence.” He believes that the challenge to the constitutionality of the law is the last glimmer of hope left for dismissed employees and their families, and he concludes: “We were counting on the People’s Assembly to amend the law, but the last session ended without any change, so this challenge came to give us back some hope, and we thank everyone who is striving to achieve justice.”
For her part, Moshira Samy, the wife of one of the employees dismissed under Law 73 of 2021, recounts the details of what happened to her husband about three years ago, when he had been working for 19 years at a government authority affiliated with the Ministry of Finance and received a notice of promotion, on condition that he take a drug test ten days after the date of notification. She recounts that on the day of the test, employees from various governorates arrived at the same time and went in for the tests en masse, which led to the samples being mixed up, as she puts it. An hour later, they called out some names, among them her husband’s, and asked him to sign a paper without explaining why, and when he asked what he was signing, he was told: “Nothing… everyone is signing.”
Things went normally after the test, as the husband continued to work for two and a half months and received his salary regularly, until he received an official letter stating that he had been suspended from work pending what they called “the confirmatory sample result”. But the surprise, as Moshira says, was that the decision to dismiss him was issued only two days after he received the letter. She tells Zawia3: “My husband doesn’t smoke cigarettes at all and doesn’t use anything whatsoever, and yet he signed like the others… The final result was supposed to come out within ten days, but it was only issued after two and a half months. Is it conceivable that a urine sample remains valid for all that time?”
She continues: “We have three daughters: the eldest is in the third year of primary school, the middle one in the first year, and the youngest in kindergarten. My husband’s mother is also elderly, eighty years old, and suffers from diabetes, blood pressure and liver disease, and he bore our full financial responsibility before he was dismissed from his job.” She stresses that her husband’s employment record was completely clean, without any penalties, and that he was well liked among his colleagues and did his work faithfully. She concludes her conversation with Zawia3 saying: “We were shocked by what happened, while there are people in the same workplace who are still using drugs to this moment and are still in their jobs,” noting that her husband went to forensic medicine, filed grievances and brought lawsuits, but lost them all.
Under Article 4 of the law, surprise testing of all employees in the bodies referred to in Article 2 is carried out by the competent authorities according to an annual plan prepared by these authorities in coordination with the employers. In this case, the test is a presumptive test, conducted by obtaining the test sample from the employee and carrying out the test in his presence, and the employee must disclose, before the test is carried out, all the medications he is taking. If the sample is positive, it is sealed as evidence and the employee is suspended from work by force of law for a period not exceeding three months or until the result of the confirmatory test arrives, whichever is sooner, with half of his wage withheld throughout the period of suspension.
The confirmatory test is carried out on the same sample at the competent authorities, and in this case the employee may, at his own expense, request recourse to the Forensic Medicine Authority, either to examine the said sample within 24 hours of its result appearing, or to undergo a medical examination on the same day the test was carried out. If the result is negative, the employer must reimburse the employee for the actual expenses he paid to the Forensic Medicine Authority, and the competent authorities or the Forensic Medicine Authority, as the case may be, must notify the employer of the final result of the test within ten working days of the date the sample reaches them. If the sample’s positivity is confirmed, the employee’s service is terminated by force of law, and his rights after the termination of his service are determined in accordance with the laws and regulations or systems governing his relationship with his employer, according to the rules and procedures set out in the executive regulations of this law.
A Constitutional Challenge Against the Law
Cassation lawyer Mostafa Zaki, a defender of workers’ rights, explains that Law No. 73 of 2021 does not apply to all companies, but only to bodies in which the state holds a share of ownership, such as government authorities and holding companies. He points out that this law terminates the employee’s service “by force of law”, and not through the traditional dismissal procedures that are subject to an investigation or to review by the labour court, which means depriving the employee of any legal guarantees or any real opportunity to defend himself.
Zaki explains that the law applies in two cases: a positive sample, or the employee’s refusal to take the test, without requiring that the employee be under the influence of the drug while at work, unlike what applied under the Labour Law and the Civil Service Law. The law also does not give the employee a “second chance”, unlike the Civil Service Law, which allowed the test to be repeated after two months. He adds that the presence of a very small amount of a drug in the body may lead to termination of service, even if it results from passive smoking or from taking a legitimate medication that affects the test result.
He tells Zawia3: “The application of the law in Egypt is marred by many problems; urine samples are collected en masse at workplaces, which increases the chances of them being mixed up, while most countries rely on blood samples, which are more accurate. A urine sample also loses its validity after two hours, while in some cases it is sent to forensic medicine after days or even weeks, which opens the door to inaccurate results.” He adds that “the accuracy of the presumptive test does not exceed 50%, yet thousands of workers have been dismissed on the basis of these results”.
In a precedent that is the first of its kind, lawyer Mostafa Zaki filed a constitutional challenge against Law No. 73 of 2021, known in the media as the “dismissal for drug use law”, following a permission issued by the Alexandria Court of Appeal in August 2025. The challenge rests on several constitutional grounds, foremost among them: violating the employee’s right to defend himself, as he is dismissed automatically without an investigation or a hearing of his statements; abolishing the discretionary power of the judiciary by turning dismissal into an automatic procedure outside the court’s oversight; the disproportionality of the penalty, as the law treats cases of occasional use and cases of addiction alike; and finally, violating the principle of social protection, by punishing the employee with expulsion without any realistic treatment of the disease of addiction.
Zaki considers that this challenge could be a turning point in the fate of thousands of similar cases, and could open the debate on fairer alternatives, such as adopting a “second chance” before final dismissal. He stresses that the impact of dismissal decisions is not limited to the employee alone, but extends to his family, which is suddenly deprived of its source of livelihood without adequate compensation, pointing to a large number of cases pending before the courts, and noting that the Constitutional Court has already accepted some challenges.
He adds that the number of those affected could range between 50,000 and 100,000 workers, which amounts to a large-scale social crisis. He also points to cases in which workers were dismissed for exceptional reasons, such as being medically unable to take the test at the specified time, taking medications that affected the result, or even cases that were undergoing treatment programmes under the supervision of the Anti-Addiction Fund. “Despite these circumstances, the people concerned were not given any opportunity to explain or to file a grievance, as company managements and judges were subjected to a single mechanism that takes no account of the differences between cases,” as he put it.
Zaki stresses that the new Labour Law No. 14 of 2025 included some ways out, as it required drug testing to be carried out at two specific hospitals, with the need to open an investigation and refer the matter to court, which was considered a partial amendment to the mechanism of Law 73. However, Zaki believes that the radical solution lies in amending the law itself, so that it includes a graduated mechanism of penalties, relies on more accurate tests, and takes into account medical conditions and the employee’s professional history.
He warns that keeping the law in its current form “is a ticking time bomb”, as it may push thousands of dismissed workers, especially those recovering from addiction, to collapse and to slide towards dangerous behaviour because their source of livelihood has been cut off, stressing that media and social pressure on the legislator to make urgent amendments is no longer an option but a necessity.
Constitutional Case No. 47 of Judicial Year 47 (Constitutional), registered on 8 September 2025, named as defendants the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Minister of Justice, the Public Prosecutor, the Minister of Petroleum and the head of the Petrogas company. The case challenged the constitutionality of Articles (2, 3, 4, 5) of Law 73 of 2021 for violating a number of constitutional articles (2, 9, 12, 14, 49, 53, 54, 57, 59, 62, 92, 94, 96, 97, 99). The case demanded a ruling of unconstitutionality, with all the consequences that follow from it, and that the defendants be ordered to pay the costs.
An Infringement of the Constitution?
Zawia3 obtained the documents of Appeal Case No. 4161 of Judicial Year 80, Alexandria, through which an employee challenged the decision to terminate his service under Law No. 73 of 2021 on drug use. The appellant’s pleas included the nullity of the decision because the employer did not notify him of the final result within ten days as the law stipulates, along with the plea that Articles (2, 3, 4, 5) of the law and its executive regulations are unconstitutional, for violating the Constitution, Islamic Sharia and the sanctity of private life, and for the absence of the principle of graduated penalties. The employee also submitted documents confirming the negative result of a later test he took at the Poison Control Centre, which casts doubt on the validity of the first sample.
The first-instance ruling found the case against the Minister of Petroleum inadmissible because it had been brought against a party without standing, and rejected it against the remaining respondents, upholding the validity of the dismissal decision on the basis of the positive confirmatory test for hashish and the employee’s failure to resort to forensic medicine within the legal deadline. However, the appeal court found the plea of unconstitutionality to be serious, and adjourned the case to a hearing on 17 November 2025 for pleadings, permitting the appellant to initiate challenge proceedings before the Supreme Constitutional Court, and deferring a decision on costs until a final ruling is issued.
Commenting on the law, human rights lawyer Malek Adly, head of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, says that Law No. 73 of 2021 represents a “flagrant constitutional violation” and a violation of the sanctity of the body and of private life, noting that it has caused humanitarian disasters affecting women, the elderly and people with psychiatric or chronic illnesses.
Adly stresses that the law is not limited to drug users, but also affects those taking medications containing similar active substances, such as painkillers for cancer and rheumatism, antidepressants and sedatives, which has led to the dismissal of innocent employees and the tarnishing of their reputations. He adds that the law disregards the principle of distinguishing between someone caught intoxicated at work and someone who performs his job efficiently and is dismissed merely because traces of a medication appear in his blood.
He believes that applying such a law may be justified in sensitive jobs that affect people’s lives, such as driving trains or working with weapons, but it is illogical when it is generalised to administrative staff, teachers and university professors. Adly criticises the absence of any guarantees for the dismissed employee, who is thrown into the street without entitlements or a pension, stressing that “an addict is a sick person who needs treatment, not punishment”.
He points out that the law is not consistent with Egypt’s constitutional and international obligations, explaining that one of the challenges against it was rejected by the State Council, but that hope remains for it to be reconsidered before another judicial circuit, to issue a ruling that restores the victims’ dignity.
For his part, Dr Adel Amer, head of the Al-Masryeen Center for Political, Legal, Economic and Social Studies, says that the law was issued as a reaction to public anger after train accidents in which some of the drivers were proven to have used drugs, but it came out “constitutionally flawed”, because it does not give an employee accused of drug use any opportunity to defend himself or to file a grievance.
He adds that “absolute reliance on the test result, without any stages of appeal or review committees, is a clear breach of the principles of justice”, especially since these tests may be marred by error or confusion. He recalls that, before this law was issued, the labour and civil service laws provided clear litigation procedures, including referring the employee to the Administrative Prosecution or the disciplinary court, or taking the dispute to the labour court.
He considers that Law 73, as a special law, has restricted these legal paths and introduced the concept of compulsory testing as a condition for remaining in public employment, which in his opinion is a measure contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. On the social impact, Dr Amer points to the issuance of about 7,000 dismissal decisions under the law, describing what is happening as a “death sentence” carried out not against the individual alone but against his entire family.
Article 2 of the law stipulates that its provisions apply to all employees of the state’s administrative apparatus, local administration units and public authorities, public sector and public business sector companies, companies managing public utilities, care homes, nurseries, schools and hospitals, and other bodies in which the state holds a stake.
Article 3 stipulates that proof of not using drugs is a condition for occupying a post or continuing in it, through a surprise test carried out by employers in coordination with the competent authorities.
On the other hand, MP Sanaa El-Saeed, in a statement to Zawia3, says that the law was passed to protect the work environment and the safety of citizens, citing train accidents attributed to the effect of drugs on workers. She adds that the Ministry of Social Solidarity preceded the application of the law with awareness campaigns and opportunities for free and voluntary treatment, aimed at sparing employees the risk of dismissal.
El-Saeed believes that the law distinguishes between medical cases and violations, as it allows the submission of proof that a doctor prescribed the drugs, and gives the employee a three-stage grievance mechanism, starting with a retest at the body that carried out the first examination, and she stresses that dismissal does not take place directly after the first positive test, but only after all levels of grievance have been exhausted.
On the parliamentary briefing requests, El-Saeed points out that no direct proposals to amend the law were discussed inside Parliament, explaining that the discussions held in March 2025 concerned the draft new Labour Law, not Law No. 73 of 2021.
A number of MPs, among them Atef El-Maghawry (Tagammu), Ehsan Shawky (Manpower Committee) and Ehab Mansour (Egyptian Social Democratic Party), had submitted briefing requests to amend the law, calling for employees to be given a chance at treatment, for the numbers of those dismissed to be disclosed, and for solutions that take the humanitarian side into account, instead of final dismissal as a first penalty.
In an official statement issued last April, the Fund for Drug Control and Treatment of Addiction explained that the law has been applied since January 2022 and obliges employees to undergo surprise tests at their workplaces. The Fund stressed that the tests are carried out accurately and distinguish 100% between drug use and the taking of medications containing scheduled substances, to ensure the fairness of the results.
The statement pointed out that the law allows the employee to file a grievance through a re-examination of the sample or a clinical assessment by forensic medicine, stressing that employees who voluntarily seek treatment are considered patients and no legal action is taken against them. As for anyone caught using drugs during work, they are dismissed in accordance with the text of the law once the confirmatory result is established.
The debate over Law No. 73 of 2021 thus remains open, between those who see it as a tool for protecting public utilities and those who see it as harsh punitive legislation in need of urgent review.
Human rights lawyer Malek Adly, head of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, commenting on Law No. 73 of 2021, stresses that Law No. 73 of 2021, which concerns the dismissal of employees from their work if tests prove that they use drugs, represents a flagrant constitutional violation and a violation of the sanctity of the body and of private life, noting that it has caused humanitarian disasters affecting women, the elderly and patients suffering from chronic and psychiatric illnesses.
Adly explains that the law is not limited in its application to users of narcotic substances, but also extends to those taking medications containing similar active substances, such as strong painkillers for cancer and rheumatism patients, or antidepressants, sleeping pills and sedatives, which has led to the dismissal of innocent employees, the tarnishing of their reputations and even their public shaming before their local communities.
He adds that the legislation disregards the principle of distinguishing between someone caught clearly intoxicated at work, a case that laws previously stipulated as warranting dismissal, and someone who performs his work efficiently and is dismissed merely because of traces of a medication or substance in his blood. He points out that applying such a law may be justified in jobs of a sensitive nature linked to people’s lives, such as flying aircraft, driving trains and buses, or working with weapons and hazardous materials, but it is illogical when it is generalised to administrative staff, employees, university professors and teachers.
Adly criticises the absence of any guarantees for dismissed employees, as they are thrown into the street without a pension or financial entitlements, even though an addict is fundamentally a sick person who needs treatment and rehabilitation, not punishment and defamation. He considers that the law is consistent neither with Egypt’s international obligations nor with the most basic constitutional rights, noting that the challenge filed against it was rejected before the State Council, but that there is hope of it being heard again before another circuit and of a fair ruling being issued that restores the victims’ dignity.
Dr Adel Amer, head of the Al-Masryeen Center for Political, Legal, Economic and Social Studies, explains that Law No. 73 of 2021 was issued amid widespread public anger, following train accidents in which investigations proved that some of the drivers were using drugs, but this legislation came out constitutionally flawed because it did not give an employee accused of drug use the right to defend himself or to file a grievance before specialised committees or judicial bodies, as it stipulated mandatory dismissal as soon as the medical test result appeared, regardless of its validity or accuracy.
The law professor explains that absolute reliance on the result of the medical test, without stages of appeal or higher grievance committees, is an explicit violation of the principles of justice, especially since these tests may be marred by error or confusion, which is what prompted the court to permit challenge proceedings against the law before the Supreme Constitutional Court, on the grounds that it did not give the employee the guarantee of a grievance and the right of defence.
He tells Zawia3: “Before this legislation was passed, the Civil Service Law and the Labour Law did not contain such special provisions; rather, they stipulated different procedures for dismissal from service. If an employee was caught clearly intoxicated, the law required the matter to be referred to the competent court; for workers subject to the Labour Law, cases were referred to the labour courts, while for employees of the administrative apparatus, the Administrative Prosecution handled the investigation and referred the files to the disciplinary court, which had the final decision.”
He adds that Law 73, as a special text, restricted the general rules set out in the labour and civil service laws, and introduced the concept of compulsory drug testing as a condition for remaining in public employment, which he considered a measure contrary to the spirit of the Constitution and the principles of justice.
On the social repercussions of applying this law, the head of the Al-Masryeen Center for Studies stresses that it has caused widespread human tragedies, as about 7,000 decisions terminating service have been issued nationwide on the basis of this legislation, describing the decision as tantamount to a “death sentence” in the Penal Code, not only for the employee but for his entire family, because it deprives the family of its sole source of livelihood and threatens its living stability.
Article 2 of Law No. 73 of 2021, on the conditions for occupying or continuing in posts, stipulates that the provisions of the law apply to employees of the units of the state’s administrative apparatus, including ministries, authorities and government bodies, local administration units, public authorities, bodies with special budgets, public sector companies, public business sector companies, companies managing the state’s public utilities and other companies affiliated with the state or in which the state holds a stake in any way whatsoever, care homes and places of shelter, refuges, placement and rehabilitation homes, nurseries, schools and hospitals.
Under Article 3, occupying posts in the bodies referred to in Article 2 of this law, by appointment, contracting, engagement, promotion, assignment, transfer or secondment, or continuing in them, requires, in addition to the other conditions contained in laws and regulations, proof of not using drugs through a surprise test carried out by employers through the competent authorities.
Parliamentary Demands to Amend the Law
In 2021, the Egyptian Parliament passed Law 73, known as the law on dismissing employees who use drugs, which made proof of not using drugs, through a surprise presumptive test carried out by employers through any of the bodies affiliated with the Ministry of Health and Population or the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, a condition for occupying government posts by appointment, contracting, engagement, promotion, assignment, transfer or secondment, or for continuing in them.
Following that, a number of MPs submitted briefing requests to amend the law on dismissing employees who use drugs, most prominently: the head of the Tagammu Party’s parliamentary bloc in the House of Representatives, Atef El-Maghawry, who called for amending the law to give workers proven to have used drugs a second chance and to put them on a treatment programme if they are addicted; MP Ehsan Shawky, a member of the Manpower Committee, who demanded disclosure of the number of employees dismissed for drug use and stressed the need to give them a chance so that families’ source of income is not cut off; and the head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party’s parliamentary bloc and deputy chair of the House of Representatives’ Manpower Committee, Ehab Mansour, who submitted a briefing request to the Prime Minister demanding disclosure of the numbers of employees dismissed for drug use.
Commenting on the law, MP Sanaa El-Saeed tells Zawia3 that Law No. 73 of 2021 was passed at the beginning of Parliament’s session in 2021 and provided for employees to undergo surprise tests at their workplaces, with the dismissal of anyone proven to have used drugs, stressing that the aim of the law is to protect the work environment and ensure the safety of citizens, and citing train and bus accidents in which it was alleged that some of those responsible were under the influence of drugs.
El-Saeed believes that the law does not conflict with the Constitution, as drug use in itself is a crime punishable by law, while the provisions of this legislation came to protect the lives of workers and of those who frequent workplaces. She adds that, before applying the law, the state issued a clear appeal through the Ministry of Social Solidarity, giving users who wished to be treated through specialised centres the opportunity to do so, in order to avoid dismissal.
Regarding sick employees who take medications that may show results similar to drug use, the MP stresses that the law explicitly distinguishes these cases, as it allows the patient to submit proof of the nature of his health condition and of the medications prescribed to him, so that he is not subject to any disciplinary penalty, pointing out that the law includes a three-tier grievance mechanism, starting with a retest by the Ministry of Health body that carried out the first examination, to ensure neutrality and accuracy, and stressing that an employee is not dismissed directly after the first positive test, but only after the grievance procedures have been exhausted and drug use has been conclusively proven.
On the briefing requests submitted by some MPs to amend the law on the grounds that it has led to the dismissal of thousands of employees, El-Saeed explains that she belongs to the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, but she does not remember any proposals to amend this legislation being discussed inside Parliament, explaining that the discussions held in March 2025 concerned the new Labour Law, which deals with cases of arbitrary dismissal, including for drug use, while no briefing requests were put forward directly on the 2021 law.
The Fund for Drug Control and Treatment of Addiction had explained, in a statement issued last April, that Law No. 73 of 2021, in force since January 2022, obliges employees of the state’s administrative apparatus and employees of private institutions of public benefit to undergo surprise drug tests at their workplaces. These tests are carried out by committees that include representatives of the Fund, the General Secretariat of Mental Health and the Forensic Medicine Authority, in which a presumptive sample is taken and, if it is positive, referred to the central laboratories for confirmatory testing, stressing that the tests are accurate and distinguish 100% between the use of narcotic substances (such as hashish and heroin) and the taking of medications listed in the drug schedules, which ensures the fairness of the results. The campaigns also cover school bus drivers and drivers on highways, in cooperation with the relevant authorities.
The Fund explained that the law gives the employee the right to file a grievance before the forensic medicine representative, where the sample is re-examined or a clinical examination is conducted to make a final determination of drug use. The law also requires proof of not using drugs upon appointment, contracting, promotion, transfer or assignment, and if the sample proves positive in the presumptive test, the employee is temporarily suspended until the result of the confirmatory test is issued, which leads either to his return to work or to his dismissal by force of law, noting that employees who come forward voluntarily for treatment before the testing campaigns are considered patients and receive treatment free of charge and in complete confidentiality, without legal accountability. As for anyone caught using drugs at work, the law is applied to them.
