Weeding Out the Medical Marijuana Issues
Alright, alright, alright… After a very entertaining and high-ly informative #nextchat about medical marijuana in the workplace, I started thinking about some of the points made today and decided that I’d like to expand on some of the ideas thrown around. And I’ll try to avoid more bad jokes and puns, but no promises…
The Sky Isn’t Falling
Even with the passage of bills in your state allowing medical marijuana, it isn’t the end of the world as we know it. After all, it’s not as if your employees are going to run out to get medical marijuana cards and start smoking up at work. For the most part, you won’t have any employees that need medical marijuana. And even if you do, it seems unlikely that they’re going to ask to start getting high at work. So take a toke deep breath, and relax.
Major Policy Overhauls Probably Not Required
Alcohol is a legal substance that affects a person’s ability to function. Marijuana is a (potentially) legal substance that affects a person’s ability to function. See where I’m going with this? You don’t allow your employees to come to work drunk, or drink at work (except for those in-office happy hours, right?), so you don’t want your employees working while high or smoking weed at work. It’s doubtful that you’re going to be required to allow Jeff Spicoli stoned employees to work and raid the vending machine.
Job Duties are a Factor
Speaking of performance, your tolerance of medical marijuana usage may depend on your employee’s job duties. If your employee is a desk jockey, then there’s less danger that being stoned will cause a dangerous incident. However, if the employee drives a forklift or a tractor-trailer, then medical marijuana use is not going to work. Allowing usage will need to be done on an individualized basis, and there likely won’t be a uniform approach that works.
Testing Could Be Difficult
Testing an employee that you believe is drunk isn’t all that hard. You give them a breathalyzer, and if its too high, then they are disciplined. Marijuana, and more particularly THC, remains detectable in the system for long after its effects wear off. In other words, giving your medical marijuana-using employee a drug test doesn’t really prove anything other than the fact that they used marijuana sometime over the last few weeks. As a result, it seems like you’ll need to evaluate an employee as to whether or not they’re able to complete their work. Such an evaluation will also necessitate independent evaluations by more than one supervisor as well, to avoid claims of a contact high bias or misunderstanding.
Federal Employment Laws May Not Apply
A great deal of discussions about medical marijuana use involve an employee’s ability to invoke the ADA or other federal employment laws. However, the ability of an employee to invoke federal law is questionable. The federal government still classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, and under federal law marijuana is illegal. It seems illogical for an employee to ask a federal court to allow him or her to engage in an activity that the federal government deems illegal. So, at this point, until the federal government changes its stance on marijuana, federal employment laws aren’t much of a concern. State laws, however, may apply.
Even if medical marijuana isn’t legal in your state, it seems like we’re heading toward legality in most states over the next few years. It won’t hurt to file some of this away, just in case your very own medical marijuana-using Wooderson employee comes into your office.