It tries to regulate your information access (what you are allowed to know and not know and when). They like to dictate your body (like where you need to be and when you go to the bathroom). Scoring systems are manipulative and exploitative and actually not constructive to learning. The edu system is more about conditioning kids for capitalism more than anything else.
Academia tries to act as fact bearers and they like to keep a monopoly on stuff like research. They are professional gate keeper credentialists. Some thought policing vibes I get from some people. Seems like all the radical thinkers were sadly cleared out and what’s left is dominated by boot licking liberals and reactionaries.
I’m Californian.
It may be reflected more in my work experience as someone who has had jobs mostly being around prescription drugs in one form or another, but they don’t test for those as much as they test for cannabis or other illicit ones. I also had some manual labor jobs that didn’t deal with drugs at all that still required UA. It also may be more of a regional thing, being more prominent in the midwest. In Illinois where cannabis is recreationally legal, 70% of jobs still drug test, making it de facto illegal for a majority of proletarians. I also think the further you move up in the corporate ladder, the less and less prevalent they become.