Well I know a thing or two in this area. It’s not something I just found on Google and Wikipedia. Employers are very good at making employees believe they have no legal options when, well… they do.
I understand. What I said very genuinely was not directed at you or what you said. It was just a generalized comment (as mentioned, not even related to this thread specifically).
If a person does their job well, why does anyone care if they do marijuana?
It’s used as a reason to fire people who aren’t performing.
Only reason I would care is if the job involved equipment or operations that are dangerous if performed stoned.
I don’t want you rolling around me driving a forklift or pouring molten steel while you’re high.
Other than that type of situation, I agree, who cares.
I used to work in management for a major magazine publisher. Once the subject of blanket drug testing came up and the editorial staff was like “We’d have no writing or art staff left”. We bailed on that policy.
Some people might think you might not be as effective at your job if you are stoned. It’s not just about danger in the workplace. It’s also about performance.
That would be easily resolved by showing the person is underperforming, as opposed to assuming they are because they smoked weed a week ago.
Even if you smoke weed every single night after work, it would not be likely to have an impact on your job performance. If you show up to work high and can’t do your job, it would be pretty obvious. Drug testing is such a waste of money.
Sorry to hear that for her, man. I’m in an illegal state. My SO is in an industry that doesn’t care and she partakes a lot. I do occasionally and work in an industry that tests for employment, and has the ability to test randomly or upon poor performance. Legality in this state is a misdemeanor for having a fairly sizable amount on you or less. However, if you have paraphernalia, that’s illegal. Carrying anything one state away, illegal. Flying with it, illegal.
The whole issue of federal legality is the biggest block to most companies in changing rules. As an example, I served in the US military. They would do random screens as we came back from port calls abroad. Half the crew would be hung over from alcohol while being tested, but the military didn’t care about that at all. But pop for marijuana use? Dishonorable discharge, if not also some small time in the brig and/or federal prison, depending on if you had some on you.
It’s the federal issue that causes a problem. To compound that, testing for alcohol use isn’t even a thing after the body processes it, usually 12 hours at the longest. Marijuana though, 3-4 days for an infrequent use, up to 20+ days for chronic use.
That’s not fair to users at all. Most certainly, eating a brownie doesn’t affect you 3 days later, much less 20 days later.
Wait – not talking about a week ago. You used the example of operating machinery under the influence. I’m saying its not just using machinery under the influence that can be objectionable, but working under the influence in other capacities.
I don’t care if someone knocked back a six-pack the evening before and showed up the next morning for work to drive a forklift. Same with the guy pushing a pencil at a desk. They want to drink some beer or smoke some weed, I don’t care. As an employer I’d like them to be sober when they show up for work, however.
Opioids are PEDs for many people. In that they couldn’t function or hold jobs at all without them…
I honestly don’t care if they’re on something, as long as it does not affect their performance. People are on a ton of different type of legal, prescription drugs that could theoretically affect their performance. We don’t fire people for testing positive for Xanax, for example. We fire them if they actually do not perform.
Well alcohol only stays in your system for a set period of time. Some of these drugs last for days, so even if you aren’t really intoxicated on any level you could still fail the test. Some of this is employers playing games with their employees (the ones that are using the test to fire people they don’t want), others are limitations of the test itself. If they don’t have a reason to suspect any issue, I don’t think they should test them. The exception are the more dangerous jobs, heavy equipment, and a fair amount of those have regular testing in their policies… or at last should which still does’t solve the limitations of specific test problem.
And unconstitutional… for politicians. Everyone else can get fucked though.
It’s bullshit.
2015:
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/142066/Egypt/Politics-/Many-Egyptian-parliamentary-candidates-test-positi.aspx
" When the High Elections Committee (HEC), the seven-member judicial body in charge of supervising Egypt’s upcoming parliamentary elections, announced an initial list of candidates on 16 September, many were taken by surprise.
HEC’s spokesperson Omar Marwan announced that of 5,955 individuals who between 1 and 12 September applied to run, 535 had their applications rejected. […] The HEC spokesman, said the majority of the rejections were due to candidates failing obligatory medical tests by testing positive for illegal drug use."
hurr hurr hurr
Here in NH, the (popular) Republican governor is adamantly opposed to legalizing recreational marijuana. He seems to think it will make the opioid crisis worse. Meanwhile, MA, ME, VT and Canada have all legalized it or recently passed legislation to do so. NH will be an island free from the reefer madness.
https://www.concordmonitor.com/New-Hampshire-House-gives-initial-OK-to-marijuana-bill-14782255
Come on Southern states. We need the first domino to fall down here, hopefully next election cycle.
Pretty soon the tax revenue from legal marijuana sales will be too good to pass up for all but the most devout states.