| There is no evidence to suggest that cannabis users experience higher rates of work-related injuries, according to an October 2020 study published in the journal Occupational Medicine.
In a cross-sectional analysis of 136,536 working participants, 2,577 (about 2%) had work-related injuries in the past 12 months. Of those 2,577 workers, roughly 4% also reported being a cannabis user in the same time period. Results from the study showed off-the-job cannabis use is not positively associated with elevated rates of occupational accidents or injuries.
As more studies reveal similar results about cannabis and impact on the workplace, state lawmakers and local executives are working to prohibit pre-employment drug screenings for cannabis. Meanwhile, multinational companies like Amazon are eliminating drug testing on their own, as Cannabis Business Times Senior Editor Zach Mentz reported this week.
“Given where state laws are moving across the U.S., we’ve changed course,” Amazon’s CEO of worldwide consumer business Dave Clark said in a public statement Tuesday. The policy change is specifically for employee positions not regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation—impaired driving remains a concern from lawmakers opposing cannabis legalization.
But as off-the-job cannabis use relates to the workplace, elected officials are moving toward public policy that protects those who use cannabis in the privacy of their own homes from being screened out of employment opportunities.
When the Minnesota House of Representatives passed an adult-use cannabis bill May 13, the legislation included a provision that would prohibit employers from randomly or arbitrarily screening job applicants out based solely on positive tests for cannabis use.
Municipalities are making moves to protect workers too. Last month, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney signed legislation into law prohibiting certain citywide employers from requiring prospective hires to pass a pre-employment drug screen, reported the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms issued an executive order in January 2021, and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser signed an executive order in September 2019 that enacted similar measures to limit employers’ abilities to drug test certain employees. And New York City lawmakers did the same through a municipal bill in May 2019.
“Suspicion-less marijuana testing in the workplace, such as pre-employment drug screening, is not now, nor has it ever been, an evidence-based policy,” NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said in a statement while testifying in support of the Philadelphia measure last month. “Rather, this discriminatory practice is a holdover from the zeitgeist of the 1980s war on drugs.”
In addition to Amazon announcing its policy change for drug screening this week, Clark also said that the company supports passage of the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, legislation that aims to legalize cannabis at the federal level. The MORE Act was reintroduced in the U.S. House last week, Cannabis Business Times Assistant Editor Andriana Ruscitto reported.
As the second-largest private employer in the U.S., Amazon has stepped up to lead by example. The federal government should do the same.
-Tony Lange, Associate Editor | 