According to a National Institute on Drug Abuse research, workers who tested positive for cannabis demonstrated 75% greater absenteeism, 85% more injuries and 55% more industrial accidents, as compared to those employees who tested negative. Also affecting the bottom line is: low productivity. Still, many state laws have increasingly permitted both recreational and medical use of cannabis; therefore, laws of workplace drug screening have also evolved. An important employment and labor question is: if marijuana or cannabis is legal, can companies drug screen it? The answer: In most cases.
State Laws regarding drug screening at workplace
Since some states that permit legal cannabis limits on screening applicants or employees or save the workforce from discrimination due to their legal marijuana use, the majority allow companies to screen for drug use. For example, in Nevada, companies are not allowed to decline a job application based on a positive result of a cannabis test. Other states, such as New York City allow medical and recreational use of marijuana; hence, employers are not allowed to test prospective or current employees for cannabis use.
Georgia is one of those states which still considers cannabis a prohibited drug. Its companies may have zero-tolerance policies for drug screening. Hence, a company with branches in multiple states faces a complex combination of state laws permitting cannabis opposing federal laws developing and applying company policies. Marijuana is still deemed illegal because federal law does not allow marijuana usage, including the Act of Americans with Disabilities. Any policy to hire users of Marijuana allows off-duty marijuana usage differs by the state law.
Employers must not ignore state laws for privacy. For instance, Illinois’ cannabis reclassification as a “legitimate product” has implications for the state’s Act of Freedom to Privacy in the workplace, that forbids companies from discriminating against workforce for off-duty “consumption of lawful products.”
The impact of federal law on workplace drug policies
On top of differing state laws, companies must contend with complexities because of federal illegality. Even in those states that allow recreational use of cannabis, federal law does not allow cannabis users to drive commercial vehicles.
Also, the 1988 Act of Drug-Free Workplace demands all federal grantees and some of the federal contractors to maintain a drug-free environment as a precondition for receiving a grant or contract from a federal agency.
The Act of Drug-Free Workplace sees marijuana and other drugs such as methadone and heroin as “controlled substances,” and as such, must fulfil the rules under the Act.
A workplace approach towards marijuana-related impairment in the organization
Employers must assess and modify their drug policies according to the law and secure the health and safety conditions within their workplace. Nearly 70% population of the U.S. is living in those states that have legalized some kind of cannabis. There are only some states that have not legalized cannabis for recreational or medical purposes; however, such sober-state workplaces still face complex issues related to the employment arising due to the empliyees use of marijuana products. Especially for construction companies, the necessity of maintaining a safe workplace makes controlling such complex issues even more crucial.
Legalization and Public support of cannabis in above 50% of American states are reflected in the 2019 Quest Diagnostics yearly drug testing index based on findings from a sample of above 10 million workplace drug screenings, revealing that cannabis was one of the most commonly used illicit substances across all categories of the workforce, including security-sensitive placements, and had the greatest positivity rates. From 2015 to 2018, the marijuana positivity rate grew up to 7.7% in the general population and 46.7% in the employees working in the construction sector. According to Quest Diagnostocs, since 2014 the positive assessment results for cannabis related to employees in federally mandated testing professions and security-sensitive ranks increased approximately 24%.
Research reveals information about usage but there is no detail about job impairment rate. It is due to the fact that metabolites of Tetrahydrocannabinol stay in body and release from hours to weeks after marijuana consumption without causing any impairment to job performance of an employee. The degree and duration of a person’s inability to perform his tasks depends upon the type of marijuana and the duration of its presence in the body. Duration of impairment of a person may range from 5 to 8 hours and may manifest in different types of symptoms such as altered sensory perceptions, delayed reaction time, and impairment to cognitive functions such as ability to analyze and process information and short-term loss of memory.
Instead of testing for general use, companies may seek (rather to create a monitoring system) to identify impairment in the organization. But, this strategy is also not free from the challenges. Considering that marijuana may remain in the system even after one month of non-use, drug screening is not a a dependable indicator of apparent impairment from marijuana.
Although some employers might keep from screening job applicants and employees for cannabis use still there are some advantages of drug screening. Workplace safety and keeping everyone safe are the major reasons why many companies continue drug screening employees and job candidates. Using any kind of drugs may lead to workplace safety problems, and cannabis alone can have adverse effects like fatigue, drowsiness, dizziness and lightheadedness. Some more severe side effects include hallucinations and disorientation. These side effects may lead to safety risk for the customers and other workers, which is something every workplace must avoid. Although regular marijuana use cannot be a determining aspect for recruiting or firing any employee, workplaces do have the right to uphold an alcohol and drug-free environment. Particularly, there are some heavily regulated professions and industries (e.g., airline pilot, or school bus driver etc.) where employees and job applicants must be screened for drugs, and cannabis is one of those no-go substances.
Although some organizations may still find value in drug screening job applicants and employees for cannabis use, some may not think it is necessary, particularly because it is now legitimate to use marijuana in many American states. One more reason for not drug screening employees and job applicants is the increasing trend of remote work in current times.
