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Legalization of marijuana and company policy

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Motown MoFo

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Mar 23, 2018
Hi forum
Been lurking around this sight for years...picked up many good tidbits. Thanx to all. My question is now that recreational marijuana is legal in California. How does your shop deal with people that smoke weed in the evening or the weekends. We are required to drug test prior to employment , and if there is a major accident. I am curious if anyone has changed company policy over the legalization of weed.
 
Search older threads. There was a fairly inclusive one about a year or so ago. I remember I posted our workplace rules handbook which gets pretty specific about the issue. Safety considerations are primary; you cannot permit, say, a crane operator to use pot and possibly endanger the lives of the other employees. State law does not negate that, nor does it relieve the employer of responsibility.
 
Not fed legal.
No go.
Insurance companies will not buy in on a accident as is their job is their job to deny claims.
You walk into state rights vs. federal law. Conflicting opinions how this should be handled but the feds have the upper hand.
Bob
 
Not fed legal.
No go.
Insurance companies will not buy in on a accident as is their job is their job to deny claims.
You walk into state rights vs. federal law. Conflicting opinions how this should be handled but the feds have the upper hand.
Bob

While constitutionally correct, it should be pointed out that the precedence of federal over state law is currently being contested in California, where a number of jurisdictions have actually made it "illegal" to cooperate in the capture of illegal aliens. While many people think the mayor of Oakland should be arrested by the feds for recently tipping off a few hundred of her MS-13 constituents in advance of an ICE raid, it's more likely that a fed-state confrontation will just be overlooked—lost in the shuffle, as it were.

My response to the OP, however, is that it doesn't matter whether his jurisdiction has decriminalized marijuana use. The employer has the right to prohibit working under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, to include random onsite testing. Somebody pees hot, he's endangering his co-workers. No state law can prevent the employer from getting him out of there. If the OP's attorney advises him that that employee may actually be protected from termination by a state law decriminalizing pot, then he needs to emigrate his business.
 
The employer has the right to prohibit working under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, to include random onsite testing. Somebody pees hot, he's endangering his co-workers.

absolutly..except one thing..one could smoke on the weekend and be stone sober monday morning..but still have a dirty urine. should this person be terminated because he/she enjoys cannabis over alcohol?
 
absolutly..except one thing..one could smoke on the weekend and be stone sober monday morning..but still have a dirty urine. should this person be terminated because he/she enjoys cannabis over alcohol?

Prove that they are indeed stone sober with residual compounds still circulating in their system.

People need to grow the hell up and not do things that makes them less employable. Your employer is not your mommy.
 
Prove that they are indeed stone sober with residual compounds still circulating in their system.

People need to grow the hell up and not do things that makes them less employable. Your employer is not your mommy.

prove they are not...ive been hungover from alcohol plenty of times..never had a weed hangover tho
 
Just because it is legal to use does not mean your employer must allow you to use...just means you can...and IF you want a Job that requires a Clean Drug Test...you can't.

Buddy drives a bus...if they detect pot, he's out. He's already had his warning, the 2nd hand I didn't...if they detect, he is jobless.

Friend is on call...if they call him in and is given a test...even if he had an O'douls non-alcoholic beer an hour ago...that is enough to get him canned. Or so he says and I'm inclined to believe him.


Interesting part is if drunk...might have a problem firing as I was under the impression its now considered a disease or...you have to provide leave, help or they are entitled to receive help to get themselves back on track and if they go that route you have to hold their job or something till they get straightened out.
I'm somewhat unclear and trying to recall the particulars...just saying can't always just terminate immediately from what I remember.
 
until its completely legal (meaning federal) and use is protected from prosecution by law, then your employer can fire or not hire you for it. once its legal its like alcohol and a job firing you for it would be like firing your for a beer you drank last saturday night. so long as you dont come to work stoned.
 
absolutly..except one thing..one could smoke on the weekend and be stone sober monday morning..but still have a dirty urine. should this person be terminated because he/she enjoys cannabis over alcohol?

exactly.

id rather be around a pot head than a drunk any day.
 
prove they are not...ive been hungover from alcohol plenty of times..never had a weed hangover tho

I had a friend living with me about for a couple years around ten years ago he smoked pot almost daily from a couple hits to smoking pipe load after pipe load. He denied it had any effect on his productivity. He was off work at his State of California job trying to milk the system and get a medical retirement for what I would call a minor injury that wouldn't stop me from doing anything.

Anyway I worked from a shop on the property and he spent his "disabled" time restoring a 72 Corvette in my garage. I could easily monitor his pot use as an experiment as the vials of the different types of marijuana were on a shelf in the garage alone with the smoking devices for all to see. He had a medicinal pot use card and bought from a local dispensary. It was pretty obvious on the days he tied one on he did next to nothing productive the next day, just sat around and watched TV. The cycle was pretty obvious like a drunk with a hangover. When I told him of my findings he finally said "Maybe your right" and finally started paying more attention. Within a few weeks he agreed that too much pot smoking carried over in to the next day.

For the record that 72 Corvette still isn't done 12 years after he bought it and he has paid others to work on it.
He did get his medical retirement and accomplishes next to nothing all day except burning through pot. In his early 50's he legally grows his own now.
 
Per page 9 of this document California employers do not have to accommodate marijuana users.

"The California Supreme Court held employers do not have to accommodate their employee’s medical marijuana use.
Ross v. RagingWire Telecommunications, Inc.,42 Cal.4th 920, 930 (2008). "


General consensus seems to be that employers have the right to test employees for marijuana and enforce a drug-free workplace.

 
No idea as since I don't smoke I don't follow it. Are there any tests that can quickly test levels of marijuana intoxication and are limits for safe driving set? Or is it a case of clean or dirty pee and no in between?
 
I have no control over what my employees do once they leave the shop. I have more of a problem with somebody drinking too much alcohol at night than too much pot. Pot wears off rather quickly, hangovers last the next working day and have a big affect on productivity as well as safety. JMHO
 
The only "rights" that trump company policy are constitutional rights. Anything else is subject to company policy.

That's not actually true. Your employer has some power to infringe on your constitutional rights. For example, you can be fired for making inappropriate posts on an internet machinist forum, even though you have the right to free speech. You can be fired for bringing a gun on company property, even though you have the right to bear arms.

The company can't stop you from pursuing your constitutional rights, but they can absolutely terminate your for it.

I don't know that there is a good answer to the OPs question. What folks do after hours is their business, but when it affects your work, it's a problem. The testing methods that work well for alcohol and other drugs don't seem to be as sophisticated for marijuana. I'm sure it will work itself out over time, but we're in a strange limbo at the moment.
 
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