As more states approve medical and recreational use of marijuana, employers relax their zero tolerance drug screening standards, and increasingly hire marijuana users. Is hiring a doper no different than hiring alcohol drinkers, or will joint-smoking employees inevitably put co-workers and customers at risk?
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Hire the Doper: Employers Relax Zero-Tolerance Drug Screening
As more states approve medical and recreational use of marijuana, employers relax their zero tolerance drug screening standards, and increasingly hire marijuana users. Is hiring a doper no different than hiring alcohol drinkers, or will joint-smoking employees inevitably put co-workers and customers at risk?
5 replies on “Hire the Doper: Employers Relax Zero-Tolerance Drug Screening”
Measuring impairment is much more important than THC levels. Employers today have plenty of options available to measure impairment. After all, sleep-deprivation with a newborn at home can result in just as much trouble running the forklift as last week’s edibles, or last Saturday’s jello shots. And only one will show up on the drug test.
“Zero-tolerance” regarding most things means being unable to use any common sense in the particular situation to which it applies. As both Scott and Bill say here, the real issue is how impaired is the employee. I contend that after a night of smoking, one is generally safer and less impaired the next morning than that same individual after a night of drinking.
By all means I’m for greatly relaxing the “zero-tolerance” policy regarding employees found with THC in their systems, and applying it more judiciously depending on the particular job requirements, etc.
Falling Standards is playing at the Mercury Ballroom tonight…
I am not saying either way, I think the war on drugs is a waste but I can say our society should be educated (if possible) and take pot a lot more seriously than it does. As I think Scott said, THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, has a half-life of 7 days. A week after smoking marijuana, half of the THC you inhaled is still in your system. THC is lipid-soluble, not water soluble. That means that it stays in lipids (like fat cells) and cannot be washed away with food or water (Alcohol is water soluble, a different dynamic). I’m sure most users (especially new or infrequent users) can relate to the “drifty” feeling even a day after using. It fades as time passes but if you use again the build up continues.
I thought it’s the breakdown products that remain, not the THC. It’s not like alcohol where you can measure the amount of the active ingredient in a person’s system. Way back in the day, i smoked pot nearly every day after work. I was never so stupid as to work while stoned. This as opposed to alcohol where I was a supremely overconfident.