Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Legal pot complicates drug-free work policies
AP ^ | 12/7/12 | KRISTEN WYATT and GENE JOHNSON

Posted on 12/09/2012 3:03:33 AM PST by GeorgiaDawg32

DENVER (AP) -- Pot may be legal, but workers may want to check with their boss first before they grab the pipe or joint during off hours.

Businesses in Washington state, where the drug is legal, and Colorado, where it will be by January, are trying to figure out how to deal with employees who use it on their own time and then fail a drug test.

It is another uncertainty that has come with pot legalization as many ask how the laws will affect them.

(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: colorado; culturewar; dopersrights; drugs; marijuana; pot; potheads; washington
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-58 next last

1 posted on 12/09/2012 3:03:52 AM PST by GeorgiaDawg32
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32

Employers will look at employees who are doped up and performing any kind of work that invites unsafe practices. You only have to note two or three occasions, and then dismiss the guy.

Course, then you come to replacing him, and how you’d go and recruit non-smokers. If you were Howard Hughes....you’d recruit Mormons and feel pretty secure about your staff.


2 posted on 12/09/2012 3:10:16 AM PST by pepsionice
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32
Seems pretty simple to me.

The job requires that you not use ________(pick a drug, or all of them).

Failing a drug test is cause for dismissal.

Put it right there on the Application.

Any job worth having in the oil patch comes with a mandatory pre-employment drug test and random checks, like it or not.

As I said to one young man, "All that stands between the 25K you make a year and a $60K job (starting) is passing a test--just not spending your money on something that keeps you from making twice as much. Your call."

3 posted on 12/09/2012 3:11:04 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32

Idiots. Pot is a drug. Same as alcohol...you don’t come to work stoned or drunk. You do, your fired.


4 posted on 12/09/2012 3:11:30 AM PST by Dallas59 (President Robert Gibbs 2009-2011)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32

Marijuana is still classified as a Schedule I controlled substance according to the DEA and Federal Law. Be that as it may, alcohol is legal but I can’t work under its influence nor can I drive under it. Your employer creates the work rules, you must abide by them.


5 posted on 12/09/2012 3:15:21 AM PST by Artie (We are surrounded by MORONS)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Smokin' Joe

I agree with you, however, we are talking bleeding heart liberals here. They’ll try and find some way around it. Wait for the lawsuits to start when someone is fired for engaging in what is now a legal activity. (I understand alcohol is legal and you can get fired for being drunk at work. But we are talking about liberals).


6 posted on 12/09/2012 3:18:22 AM PST by GeorgiaDawg32
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32

THC (the active ingredient in pot) is not like alcohol in some critical respects.

Alcohol is fairly rapidly detoxed from the body. However, THC gravitates to fatty tissue and linger much, much longer. There can be traces in the body for long times afterwards.

Therefore, there are all sorts of liability issues e.g. when pot smokers operate machinery or in settings like hospitals.

It is NOT just a matter whether someone is smoking pot during working hours. It could be weeks or months even before high quantity users have the THC eliminated from their bodies (especially their brains). Employers beware that pot smokers can and will be a liability in the workplace.


7 posted on 12/09/2012 3:19:45 AM PST by veritas2002
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32

I would think that there would be no question with regard to this. Currently, many employers have policies about drinking alcohol, being drunk during working hours is verboten. There are also rules against smoking. This shouldn’t be any different.


8 posted on 12/09/2012 3:26:42 AM PST by Gaffer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32
Pretty simple line to draw here, IMHO. I'm all for making it legal. I don't see any specific need to permit an employee to abuse it during work hours.

Personally, I'd consider any use grounds for dismissal. Just like before. I won't go out of my way to stop someone from smoking it though. That is their freedom of choice and consequence.

9 posted on 12/09/2012 3:28:22 AM PST by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32
There is no way around getting burned to death on a workover rig because someone spaced something out, nor being crushed by 10,000 pounds of traveling blocks because the driller was, "like, distracted man. Bummer."

Some things absolutely require your full attention, and the requirements were introduced not as a legal issue, but one of safety.

The injury/death statistics from the industry confirm that the practice of requiring drug tests (and post accident data will doubtlessly confirm) that it is a lot safer to have straight and sober people on rig crews.

If you want to make the paycheck, make the grade.

There are quite a few other jobs which should have similar requirements, if they do not already, as a term of employment.

10 posted on 12/09/2012 3:28:38 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32

A stoned society is a better controlled society. Just look at what thier doing to our children and grandchildren


11 posted on 12/09/2012 3:36:18 AM PST by ronnie raygun (bb)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: veritas2002

The way I look at it, it’s a good opportunity to dismiss obama supporters since the pot smokers more than likely voted for that knucklehead.


12 posted on 12/09/2012 3:36:27 AM PST by GeorgiaDawg32
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32; All

Companies can already refuse to hire people, and fire people, who use legal drugs....and even alcohol....so stoners should not get too overtly excited in COL and WASH if they plan to stay gainfully employed.

And, pot is one of the easiest drugs to test for


13 posted on 12/09/2012 4:01:53 AM PST by SeminoleCounty (Illegal Aliens do not pay Social Security...Employers do.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32

Not a problem for employers who do drug testing.

If the employee fails the test he/she should be terminated.


14 posted on 12/09/2012 4:27:53 AM PST by octex
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeminoleCounty

Yet hospitals can make it mandatory for health care workers to get flu shots, or be fired. Go figure.


15 posted on 12/09/2012 4:30:55 AM PST by Daffynition (Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious. ~ HLM)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32
Here's the way I look at it. Simply because it is legal doesn't make it ok to do it on the job, alcohol is legal but most companies have a strict policy about drinking on the job. Since pot stays in the system for 30 days, or so I am told, then the company has the right to say that since they can't determine if the drug test failed because the person used on the job or not, they are going to have to fire the person simply on the assumption they used on the job, for safety purposes.

This is legal and fair. If you don't want to work for places that do drug tests then work some where else, or simply don't smoke pot.

16 posted on 12/09/2012 4:31:58 AM PST by calex59
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32

People forget the infamous Maryland Amtrak wreck of 1987, which involved a stoned engineer. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Maryland_train_collision


17 posted on 12/09/2012 4:41:46 AM PST by ingeborg (Don't take it out on Willie Green.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GeorgiaDawg32
This is something I never understood. Employers say they want a 'drug free workplace', [which is understandable], but what they MEAN is that they want a drug-free work FORCE....which is not the same thing.

On a side note - most of the whacked-out,'druggiest' people I've ever known all were on government-approved drugs.

18 posted on 12/09/2012 4:58:40 AM PST by MamaTexan (To follow Original Constitutional Intent, one MUST acknowledge the Right of secession)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Dallas59
Pot is a drug. Same as alcohol...you don’t come to work stoned or drunk. You do, your fired.

Alcohol stays in your system for one or two days. Pot stays in your system for one or two MONTHS.

So people can get fired because they has a few tokes while on vacation last month, but someone who spent the weekend chit-faced drunk is okay!

Just doesn't seem right, somehow.

19 posted on 12/09/2012 5:03:20 AM PST by MamaTexan (To follow Original Constitutional Intent, one MUST acknowledge the Right of secession)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: ingeborg
...which involved a stoned engineer.

You state categorically that they were stoned. The wiki article only says they tested positive for it. The two are not necessarily related, due to the body's retention of thc for weeks after ingesting. But, I am sure you know that, if you have been reading the posts on this threadbut have an agenda.

FYI, I am not smoking anything but cigars these days... and wash it down with a glass of Cognac, Irish or Scotch Whiskey!

What are you drinking? There are many instances of ALCOHOL related crashes of all sorts, but most pot involved accidents are actually booze accidents with a sensational headline. I have juggled four balls when "stoned"! I could barely get them in the air when drinking booze... Just my opinion (and personal experience).

20 posted on 12/09/2012 5:03:30 AM PST by WVKayaker ("Hang in there, America. Fight for what is right." - Sarah Palin 11/7/12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-58 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson