This year in Colorado, the countdown that took place at midnight on New Year’s Eve meant a lot more to a large group of residents and shop owners. This was the day that the sale of marijuana became legal to anyone over 21 years of age at licensed stores. While the drug is still illegal under federal law, Colorado has the most legal sale of the stuff anywhere in the world, including Amsterdam.
With the taxes on the sale of marijuana at nearly 30% in Denver, the revenue is projected to be very helpful to the state financially. They’re expecting quite they haul. The first $40 million to come in from the state tax will be put toward school construction. Revenue above that will be used to regulate marijuana shops and create educational campaigns around its use. If sales continue the way that they’re going, that $40 million mark will be surpassed quite quickly, leaving other cities with pipedreams about what they could do with funds like that. Whatever your stance on the drug is, it is a safe speculation that this trend could move east.
This means a whole new set of issues for employers. The Denver Post wrote an article clearing up some of the more common questions that have arisen over the new legality of pot. In the article they touch on employer/employee rights as it pertains to marijuana use.
Q: Will my employer be OK with me using marijuana?
A: That’s really between you and your boss. Employers can pretty clearly fire people who show up to work baked. But Colorado case law around medical marijuana suggests they can also fire an employee for off-the-clock marijuana use, even if there’s no allegation that the employee was impaired on the job. Some businesses say they won’t mind if their workers get high on their own time, but as one lawyer put it, “Employers hold all the cards.”
It sounds like not much has changed when it comes to job security for marijuana smokers. Because the use of marijuana is still illegal under federal law, employees have no protection to use it at anytime. Furthermore, drug testing is still allowed at the employer’s discretion.
The popularity of this new freedom to smoke will inevitably result in more workers either showing up to work high, or having testable amounts of THC still in their systems. This presents safety, testing and liability issues. Drug policies will surely be revisited and strictly enforced in many companies. We will also likely start to see a lot more drug testing.
For a more accurate test, blood samples are needed. These test are in the pricier range (about $100) and are therefore less commonly used. Most companies will go with urine testing. Although it is far less accurate in revealing the duration since smoking, these tests are on the cheaper end starting as low as $7 a pop.
Because cheaper testing doesn’t reveal if a worker is actually high, but rather if THC is anywhere in their system, this can be a shady area where worker’s compensation claims are concerned. Although a worker might be of sound mind when an accident occurs, a strict drug policy and a positive test will mean that they forfeit their rights to compensation claims and would most likely end in termination.
Workers at jobs where safety concerns are high should seriously take this into consideration. What they do on their free time could really affect their rights and benefits at work.
What might seem like an issue that won’t affect your company, very possibly could and sooner than you think. Keith Griffin said in a Recruiter.com article,
“The Marijuana Policy Project, a public advocacy group, has said it wants to decriminalize marijuana possession in Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Washington, D.C.; and end marijuana prohibition in Alaska, California, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.”
Will marijuana policies be the new social media policy at work? With the divide between state and federal law, there are some grey areas, but employers are still able to enforce their own drug rules. Please let us know –Would you hire a smoker? Tweet us or Facebook us with your input.
