What will legal marijuana mean for safety sensitive jobs and drug testing?

TacoMac said:

It's this simple:

Drinking is legal, right? Do they allow you to drink on the job?

No. They don't.

Why? Because it impairs peoples judgment, decision making and reflexes and can lead to accidents.

Marijuana is no different. You can come up with any lame excuses you want about how it doesn't effect your skills, but fact of the matter is that it does. It will be handled the same exact way that alcohol is for the foreseeable future.

The reason for that? Primarily, it's insurance.

No company will EVER be able to insure itself against accidents if it allows people using impairing substances to do safety sensitive jobs.

It's not rocket science, folks. It's simple common sense. (Which of course a very large majority of pot smokers lost along the way somewhere.)

Click to expand...

I get your point, but alcohol is only a recreational drug. The AMA lists it as having zero medical uses. It used to be listed as a treatment for DT's related to alcoholism, but there are better drugs now and they no longer recommend alcohol for that. Zero medical uses.

Cannabis on the other hand, does have recognized medical uses. Just as opiats and barbituates do. Now you CAN be legally prescribed drugs which impair your ability to operate machinery, and you can't be fired over using them. Your employer has to make a reasonable accomodation for you (desk job, etc) or let you stay home. It shouldn't be any different for cannabis.

It is not going to matter.

The only thing that is going to matter is the liability position. Present pain medication is no different. A lot of people on pain medications are prohibited from doing high risk jobs as it is.

A LOT of it is simply going to boil down to the complete lack of education of the people at large. You say "oxycodone" and they think "it's OK, a doctor prescribes it". You say "marijuana" and they instantly think "worthless pothead with no job and a very extensive criminal record that should be in jail".

There's just no way to mitigate that out of the status quo for now.

What it's going to take is the Federal Government removing it from schedule one. The INSTANT that is done, you'll see a complete change in the way marijuana is perceived.

• States that have been on the fence about legalization will go ahead and take the plunge.
• Doctors that have been afraid of losing malpractice insurance for prescribing it will no longer have to fear that.
• People who have been suffering that suddenly gain access to medical marijuana will quickly spread the word about it.
• Insurance companies will look at it as a very low cost alternative to high end pharmaceuticals and start approving it at record pace.

Perceptions will change.

But in the end, none of that will ever happen so long as it's on schedule one.