We’ve had a sign posted at work saying “We are proud to be a drug-free workplace. All new and current employees are subject to drug testing at any time.”
Not. Once. Not even when Jimmy came in to work each evening with the smell of weed wafting off of him. I could probably lay rails on my work table right in front of the security camera and hit one each hour and nothing would happen.
Sure, but that’s not what the policies are for. If/when someone gets injured on the job the policy is standardly they require you to take a drug test then. If you fail you were breaking policy and the injury is deemed your fault, thus taking all responsibility of paying you workers comp off the table. Happens every day across the U.S. (that said I believe you can fight it, as you aren’t always automatically eliminated if you fail the drug test, you will have an up hill battle though)
I worked at a factory in the rural south the year (2022) they quietly did away with marijuana testing, even for spot violations. Turns out the standard reasoning, “the insurance company says,” doesn’t really matter… they didn’t care and allowed a 9-panel to be used in all testing matters.
The unofficial reason I heard is, they go through the same workers on rotation, the good employees get hired back and forth. Drunks are chaotic, tweakers introduce drugs and are chaotic. Stoners are quiet and show up on time, and cause 0% of the fights, and tend to come with less of a rap sheet for terroristic threats and domestics.
They almost tripped over themselves to look the other way on my stonership…
I live in a state with recreational marijuana, but my current employer’s policies specifically prohibit even medical marijuana, and I had to do a pre-employment drug test. Looking for a better job, but I’ve exhausted unemployment and all my savings, so it pays the bills for now.
Is that not protected under anti-disability discrimination legislation in the US?
I’m on medical cannabis in the UK, while our system is not set up for it at all if an employer took umbrage with it for a non-operational reason (such as operating heavy machinery vs being on it at all) that’d be a fairly open and shut disability discrimination case. Same as if you fired an employee for being on tramadol or similar.
Christ, how does that work with your doctors being way more keen to prescribe narcotics than ours then? Is it literally a case of follow your doctor’s orders or your boss’s? That’s fucked up.
Side note update for you, thanks to the Sacklers and the hell on earth they visited on us via profiteering lying about the opiates they invented, now there’s actually a gigantic back swing and it’s WAY more difficult to be prescribed strong pain relief, even when badly needed. Count on us to always come up with the worst possible response to a problem, I guess.
Prescribed narcotics would be OK as long as related doctor or company restrictions on operating heavy equipment or such were complied with. But in the US marijuana is still federally illegal. The feds usually don’t seek out prosecutions where states have legalized at the state level, but banks won’t accept business accounts if marijuana is sold because of the federal illegality, and businesses involving heavy machinery generally also still feel the legal risk of explicitly allowing marijuana use is too high.
Doesn’t make it OK to be high at a job where that impairment puts you and others in danger.
That being said, there’s no test for THC that has a narrow enough time window to tell if someone is currently intoxicated. Blood tests are the closest at 6h, but blood levels aren’t correlated with intoxication.
We’ve had a sign posted at work saying “We are proud to be a drug-free workplace. All new and current employees are subject to drug testing at any time.”
Not. Once. Not even when Jimmy came in to work each evening with the smell of weed wafting off of him. I could probably lay rails on my work table right in front of the security camera and hit one each hour and nothing would happen.
Sure, but that’s not what the policies are for. If/when someone gets injured on the job the policy is standardly they require you to take a drug test then. If you fail you were breaking policy and the injury is deemed your fault, thus taking all responsibility of paying you workers comp off the table. Happens every day across the U.S. (that said I believe you can fight it, as you aren’t always automatically eliminated if you fail the drug test, you will have an up hill battle though)
I worked at a factory in the rural south the year (2022) they quietly did away with marijuana testing, even for spot violations. Turns out the standard reasoning, “the insurance company says,” doesn’t really matter… they didn’t care and allowed a 9-panel to be used in all testing matters.
The unofficial reason I heard is, they go through the same workers on rotation, the good employees get hired back and forth. Drunks are chaotic, tweakers introduce drugs and are chaotic. Stoners are quiet and show up on time, and cause 0% of the fights, and tend to come with less of a rap sheet for terroristic threats and domestics.
They almost tripped over themselves to look the other way on my stonership…
For weed, get a medical card, if you can afford it. Usually even in recreational states you can get one and then they can’t fire ypu for it.
I live in a state with recreational marijuana, but my current employer’s policies specifically prohibit even medical marijuana, and I had to do a pre-employment drug test. Looking for a better job, but I’ve exhausted unemployment and all my savings, so it pays the bills for now.
Is that not protected under anti-disability discrimination legislation in the US?
I’m on medical cannabis in the UK, while our system is not set up for it at all if an employer took umbrage with it for a non-operational reason (such as operating heavy machinery vs being on it at all) that’d be a fairly open and shut disability discrimination case. Same as if you fired an employee for being on tramadol or similar.
Absolutely not protected in the US. They can and will fire you.
Christ, how does that work with your doctors being way more keen to prescribe narcotics than ours then? Is it literally a case of follow your doctor’s orders or your boss’s? That’s fucked up.
Side note update for you, thanks to the Sacklers and the hell on earth they visited on us via profiteering lying about the opiates they invented, now there’s actually a gigantic back swing and it’s WAY more difficult to be prescribed strong pain relief, even when badly needed. Count on us to always come up with the worst possible response to a problem, I guess.
Prescribed narcotics would be OK as long as related doctor or company restrictions on operating heavy equipment or such were complied with. But in the US marijuana is still federally illegal. The feds usually don’t seek out prosecutions where states have legalized at the state level, but banks won’t accept business accounts if marijuana is sold because of the federal illegality, and businesses involving heavy machinery generally also still feel the legal risk of explicitly allowing marijuana use is too high.
[CITATION NEEDED.]
You can have a prescription for opiates too.
Doesn’t make it OK to be high at a job where that impairment puts you and others in danger.
That being said, there’s no test for THC that has a narrow enough time window to tell if someone is currently intoxicated. Blood tests are the closest at 6h, but blood levels aren’t correlated with intoxication.
“Drug-free workplace” policy language is also a requirement for a lot of government contracts in the US