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Idk man, I feel like that's something that employers should know about. Idk.

Do employers ask about alcohol use? Tobacco?

It’s legal now. These sort of mores ought to evolve with the times.

In my experience, those other drugs aren't used as frequently or in the same way as this one. But to answer your question, it might be valid for some people to know.

I think this is good. I NEVER thought I would use cannabis, but I currently use it for pain and for better sleep w my Drs blessing. It works better than opioids and is less dangerous.

Just...what?

It's neat, but it only applies to applicants, so it's basically useless. Employers will still be able to fire you for testing positive after you're hired.

I guess it's more akin to cigarettes in use than alcohol, just with a much different effect.

I'm all for decriminalization of most drugs. I just think that an employer should be able to take any negative effects into account when hiring I guess.

It would make more sense to me to prohibit employers from testing for it, rather than allowing the test and prohibiting the use of those test results as a basis for the decision not to hire someone. I think trying to legislate the reasons why people make decisions is a bad idea.

Alcohol abuse is rampant and completely normalized all over the world what are you talking about? If I want to drink gasoline in my time off why is that any of my employers business?

Assuming someone has “negative effects” because they use drugs is kinda shitty.

Yep, everyone walking around out there blazing down like snoop dogg. Goddamn druggies.

Why?

Can we get the right to grow legally at home now? I just saw that one failed to get through committee again.

Never met a functioning acloholic before eh?

You see how much taxes they brought in? Don’t think they will allow that lol

Tobacco has become common with employer provided health care. I have had to take a test in order to not pay $50 a month tobacco fee. I could see that happening with alcohol some day once our society accepts it’s worse for us than pretty much everything else people worry about.

So anyone who does any recreational drug on their own time, from alcohol to marijuana should not be allowed to work?

No one is saying there are gonna be surgeons stoned hot boxing the O.R. Though don't look into how many surgeons are alcoholics by statistic, you will never go under the scalpel again...

if your job doesn’t have any major liabilities i don’t see why it’s an issue. and if there was a way to test people on the spot like alcohol it would make an even stronger case for employers to mind their business about workers’ personal lives.

>In my experience, those other drugs aren't used as frequently or in the same way as this one.

Wait, what? What planet are you from where alcohol isn't used as frequently or in the same way as cannabis?

It shouldn't be normalized.

I don't think I worded it right.

People that I know generally drink alcohol during special occasions or like when they go out to eat or something. You know?

People that I know that use marijuana treat it more like a cigarette, where they need one every hour or so.

Same. If it won't affect anything then your employer shouldn't care.

Alcohol can be pretty obvious though.

Didn't say that at all. Just think that the employer might want to know is all.

I have and it's awful. One of my best friends is and he needs serious help.

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Any form of impairment can negatively affect a job. Depending on the job, it could be more or less severe.

>I don't think I worded it right.

<facepalm> No, the problem isn't how you worded it. The problem is you really don't know much about the world beyond your bubble... let alone how different your bubble is from the rest of the world.

Unfortunately I can't use logic to dissuade you from a position that you didn't get to logically in the first place.

In my experiences, people say that it's not addictive and then can't go more than a couple of days without it.

I wouldn't want, say a crane operator, under any kind of influence. Sounds dangerous.

>In my experiences

I thought we just established that "your experience" is... not at all representative of the real world. (And that you don't seem to be aware of this.)

Alcohol and marijuana are substances that can influence an individual's ability to process information and think.

An employer who operates in a field where it is important to always be in full control, might not want someone who uses these substances.

I'm not sure what about that is awful of me to think.

If you want to do those things, cool. Don't tell your employer about it and keep it to after work / weekends.

I know way too many people who work buzzed or high and it's kinda terrifying based on what they do.

Still a felony to grow a single plant of your own

When it becomes an issue and affects your work.

I'm extremely aware that my life experience is different to literally every other person's experience.

I have yet to meet a single person who can just stop smoking and not have withdrawal symptoms.

The conversation isn't about people using drugs while working and the bill doesn't protect that behavior so you bringing it up here is not relevant. If someone smokes weed or gets drunk on a Saturday does that mean their ability to work on Monday is impeded? Why do you operate under the assumption that using the aforementioned must also include abuse and usage while working?

What other things are you advocating that employers know about our personal lives? If you have a porn addiction should your employer know? After all it could impact your work ethic and you could create problems by indulging at work.

Your opinion is that using weed is an immoral act and you are creating a post hoc justification for it that does not stand up to scrutiny. This is why you do the very typical thing of moving the discussion to be about using drugs on the job and not off the clock.

Things like this can easily bleed into work.

If I was an employer, I wouldn't want employees with a higher risk of any kind of bad behavior.

I am pro decriminalization for most drugs. Weed is fine. People should be free to do it. If it affects work, it can be a problem. That's it.

Thanks for addressing none of the questions posed to you in my previous comment, have a great day.

People are impaired when they take mind altering substances. An employer can fire you for coming into work drunk, and I don't see why coming in to work high should be any different. That being said, I do think it's a bit silly for an employer to weight being a weed user any differently than being a drinker. But... it's not like employers don't take drinking habits into account when making hiring decisions. If you tell your employer about how you like to party on the weekend and get smashed all the time, they are well within their right to not offer you the job. I'm not sure why they should be required to treat alternate drug use differently.

Doesn't this kind of defeat your whole point? People with a drug problem will have a drug problem regardless of the drug.

Part of the problem is it’s still schedule 1 at the federal levels. Any business that accepts money from the federal government has to test for it. So healthcare is a big one because almost all of them take Medicare reimbursement. It’s not that simple because of its schedule 1 classification.

The operative word here is "can", as opposed to "does". If their job performance actually does suffer, then fire them for substandard performance. The reason their performance is substandard isn't relevant. Measure performance and manage people accordingly.

Home brewing hasn't hurt the alcohol industry. One plant is a lot of work.

I’m by no means an expert, but I imagine they still get a lot of money on taxes with home brewing, where as with plants, wouldn’t it be easier to get starters without buying?

Regardless, I think it’s easy to say there is no motivation to allow growing.

Preach! It's ridiculous.

This is not entirely true. My last job had federal contracts. They were drug testing for incidents until they had a tech get fired. She tested positive after she was drug tested when another employee poked her with a dirty needle. They were already hemorrhaging employees because it was a shitty place so they decided to stop.

Per the 1988 DFWA they are required to have a drug free workplace policy for companies for a contract of 100k or more. However, it does not require testing. Employers would love for you to think that because they may get benefits as far as insurance is concerned but they are not required to drug test. My friend was working at Microsoft and had to quit smoking weed because he was going to work on a federal project. Some places have more lax requirements or may test for it less if the employee has nothing to do with the contract. Its possible specific contracts may have such a provision but it isn't a matter of law, or in every federal contract. The feds leave enforcement up to individual companies.

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Not only that, but drug tests show positive even when the person isn’t actively impaired.

Drug tests show positive even when the person isn’t impaired is the problem. What you do outside of work, on private property, is not any of your employees business.

Yup. Measure outputs not inputs.

>mittee Votes to Protect Marijuana Users From Discrimination When Job Hunting

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That would be the quickest, easiest way to deal with the hiring part but it doesn't address the problem of when there is some kind of accident at work does the employee get fired when they pee hot for weed? That and I'm not sure how this will affect jobs that have federal rules in place but you can't address all the problems all at once so at the very least this should be good for a good chunk of workers.

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And truth be told I'm not sure that employers wont be happy about this as didn't much of this drug testing business start from insurance companies for employers?

You don't know a representative sample

30% of Americans drink every day

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/

30% of Americans drink every day

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/

I used to work for a place in NH that required drug testing to be hired and they simply didn't test for marijuana. It wasn't even legal in NH but it was in every bordering state and Canada so they realized it was pretty dumb to enforce.

They're religion too I suppose, make sure all availability to discriminate is checked.

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That's too many.

It's literally medically recommended to drink every day.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/benefits-of-wine

Studies like that change and contradict one another all the time.

I've read studies about coffee being a cure for cancer and also causing cancer.

They'd still get plenty of taxes from grass as well. Like the other user said, one plant is a lot of work. Personally, I'd try growing just for fun, but would probably fail, and end up back at the weed store. No big deal in my eyes. Especially since retail prices are pretty reasonable.

A step in the right direction, but we need federal law to catch up to us before this will be of much use.

I could have my info mixed up, but I think WA was the only recreationally legal state to not allow home grows. This state's tax system is so beyond regressive that they couldn't afford to lose money to people growing at home.

It's way easier than you would think

Yep, I work at a telecommunications company that takes federal funding, we can't smoke weed deposite it being legal on the state level

It's not super difficult, but it also isn't super easy to grow something dispensary quality at home without the right equipment. In that case, a lot of folks home growing will throw in the towel because it's cheaper to just go to the store and buy an 1/8th for 20-45 bucks than to get all of the gear that helps attain high quality bud. Some will go nuts with it, and I'm here for that! Show me your sweet grows! But most of us will keep hitting up the store, because it's convenient.

I haven't been drug tested at the major hospital chain I worked for, and I'm a nurse. They were certainly getting federal money.

Permit only and they can come search your shit when ever

I think part of the logistical issue is that a lot of places use the tests for like 5 or 7 different drugs at once, most of which include pot.

Not totally accurate. I work in healthcare and my entire hospital system does not test. We get Fed money for all kinds of stuff.

We are 😢

Not even when hired? We test at the beginning to show we do it and then only again if there is an accident/injury.

Not even when you were hired?

It’s weird they won’t let you if it’s a non-safety related position. Most places now where it’s legal know they won’t have as many good candidates if they continually test.

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We only test at the beginning or if there is an accident/injury. Every other hospital I know does as well. It could be out of an abundance of caution, but Medicare is big business.

Nope. Nurses Union and Doctors Union oppose it and testing never seems to come up.

You know employers don't actually own their employees, right?

More recent studies say there's no amount of alcohol that's not bad for you. But that's really beside the point of this thread.

For one thing it's different because there is absolutely no test that can determine whether an individual is high.

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What topics are off limits for an employer to you?

Exactly

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UW system does not drug test nurses. VM didn’t, maybe they do now that they are owned by CHI. Island Health RN contract has explicit language bargained in that forbids pre employment and routine drug testing. But no Medicare has nothing to do with if healthcare companies drug test. It’s all individual policy.

We can’t afford to lose you. That’s the honest truth.

Probably is a safety thing, we sometimes operate heavy machinery

That's a good question.

I feel like your religion or sexual orientation wouldn't affect work performance at all.

Basically anything that doesn't impair your judgement should be fine.

Won't be enacted until 1/2024 but still it's good our government is doing things that make sense. To the other side of the argument, they can still fire you for being high at work and you have to be legit enough to pass a interview so I'd imagine you'd have functional smokers applying and holding jobs in 2024.

That’s it then, more safety related positions will them and require people not partake.

But the policy is likely because of Medicare. I talked with the head of our Human Resources department about it specifically and it’s because we accept federal funds as a hospital. Now the place I work is in Oregon and I haven’t looked into OHAs stance on the matter but would assume it follows Oregon laws regarding marijuana.

That’s crazy. I just had this discussion with our director of Human Resources and it’s because we accept federal funding. Perhaps it’s our abundance of caution but everyone in the room knows it may be causing additional strain on finding good employees.

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>It’s legal now.

No, it's not. It's still illegal per federal law. You are violating federal law each time you use cannabis. A better way of putting it is that you don't risk criminal penalties for using it, but that doesn't make it legal.

Granted, the vast majority of people in WA couldn't (and really don't need to) give two shits, because the discrepancy between federal and state laws doesn't affect their daily lives.

I know it sounds like I'm splitting hairs now. But for those of us who work in compliance for federally funded institutions, we get a lot of people who misunderstand these nuances because of blanket statements like that.

I'm not saying things should be this way (in fact, I'm a strong proponent of federal legalization, and once I quit my job I'll probably partake), but they currently are, and it's misinformation to say otherwise.

I get your theory there but it just doesn’t pan out in practice. There are many healthcare networks that don’t test nurses and they all contract with Medicare and CMS. It seems the test or not to test is purely due to organizational preference.

More like they can't find too many people who want to work for them and their turn-over rate is increasing.

Grow outdoors, been doing it for 30 years, even developed my own strain for W. Washington. Hell of a lot of work, it is a great hobby. Such diversity working with seed.

Hell yeah, that's what's up!!