Reports indicate that employers are starting to drop marijuana from pre-employment drug tests in order to fill positions, citing they’re having a hard time hiring employees that don’t test positive. Growing public acceptance is another driver for more employers as well as the legalization of marijuana in some states. As the rules change, it becomes less important for employers to screen out folks on the basis of marijuana use. Drug testing in the workplace began in the late 1980s, and excluding cannabis from testing marks the 1st major shift in drug policies in the workplace since then.
Caesar’s Entertainment, among the larger employers in Las Vegas, announced this week they will no longer test people for cannabis as part of their pre-hiring process. As the rules change, it becomes less important for employers to screen out folks on the basis of marijuana use, the exception is if you’re working in transportation.
Rich Broome, the VP of Communications at Caesars, says, There will still be strict guidelines, and any employee who comes to work high will be fired”. “We just felt that given the changes in laws that were happening across the country, it was prudent for us to take a different point of view on marijuana than other drugs in the pre-employment screening process,” said Broome. “It’s very different when you’re at work. If you’re high at work, we will test. And if you have the presence of drugs in your blood stream, it can be cause for dismissal.”
Another factor in the relaxation of screening protocols is the disparity of legalization around the US. With more than half of states permitting marijuana use in at least some cases, the patchwork of regulations can be an administrative nightmare, and could leave a company vulnerable to a lawsuit if it fires an employee using marijuana in accordance with their state’s rules. Court cases seem to indicate that you can’t fire people for smoking marijuana when they’re not on the clock.
But counterintuitively, some employers are drug-testing at a higher rate if they suspect a worker is impaired or after an accident. It’s become a worker’s comp issue, too. Some worker’s compensation issuers deny coverage if a worker injures themselves while under the influence of marijuana.
Times are changing!