Q: Since recreational marijuana is now legal in Colorado, how does that affect employers who do drug testing in that state? And what about companies based in Florida with a branch office in Colorado?
A: Amendment 64 has opened up a can of worms for Colorado employers who have not had a lot of time to react between when the law passed in November to when it became effective on January 1.
Although the law does not require employers to change their drug policies, companies will probably want to revise them. One major hurdle seems to be testing. Instead of the usual urine drug test that measures whether someone has used pot in the last 20 days or so, employers may now have to measure whether someone is “under the influence” while on the job. The crux is that, unlike alcohol, there is no agreed upon “impairment threshold” for pot. For alcohol we know that x amount in the blood or on a breathalyzer equals impairment. With pot, there is no such thing yet. So that threshold will have to be determined. They’re also working on a more sensitive saliva test that measures how much pot is presently active in the body, but that test is not yet widely available.
As for your second question, the quickest answer is I don’t know how a Florida company should handle a Colorado branch. But here’s food for thought. The feds still consider pot illegal, so any company with federal contracts or grants, or those in industries regulated by federal agencies (like education, transportation, energy or defense) will continue to have to ensure their employees are not using pot regardless of the state.
For all other companies, perhaps the easiest way is to treat marijuana like any other legal drug such as prescription medications or alcohol. Most drug testing programs already address those and how to handle misuse or abuse.
Undoubtedly, there has been a sea change in societal attitudes toward marijuana and it looks like in the next decade or two, it will eventually become like alcohol: restricted and regulated but legal. For now, all eyes are on Colorado, trailblazers indeed.
© Copyright Eva Del Rio
