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 ...
There are and should be limits to what an employer demands of their employees in their off duty hours.
However, that being said, while a test can determine if someone has THC in their system, unlike alcohol, it cannot determine if it is enough to cause inebriation.
The best result might be a medical prescription that indicates how much of what kind of marijuana a patient can smoke when off duty, and still be functional at work. Most prescriptions are scheduled, not “as needed”, so this isn’t too unrealistic. Doctors would use a weight table, suggest the marijuana before, during or after a meal, as well as asking the patient about their own experience, how long a high lasts for them.
Im regards to all drug testing, whether pot is legal or not, states/feds should specify impairment levels.
It’s not that easy. Impairment, in the case of marijuana, is highly subjective. Those who use a lot soon lose much of the impairment of infrequent users. Likewise, body weight and food consumption, and just individual differences make a single standard difficult or impossible.
Finally retention in the blood is so great that someone who would have been “baked” when they had freshly consumed marijuana and for a few hours thereafter, will have close to those same levels, but be entirely clear headed, days later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thc
To make things even more confusing, there are dozens of still therapeutic, but not intoxicating, chemicals in marijuana as well. If someone is using marijuana for one or more of those, not for its THC, the type of marijuana used and the dosage will be considerably different.
For example, only one variety of marijuana seems to be very efficacious in reducing the damage from the blindness causing disease Retinitis Pigmentosa. So its users are far less interested in the THC level than in the other chemical responsible for this effect.
You are aware that most current pot tests do not measure current state of “stoned” like BAC measures current state of “drunk”, right?
Yes, this will be very difficult. Right now in CA (prolly many other states), you can take a couple prescription vicodin at 7 pm, get stopped the next day and fail the drug blood test and be charged with DUI. MJ will be very hard to quantify.
Obviously the only way they can be alcohol free is to not ever drink alcohol in any form ~ not ever.
Then there is the far larger group who are unable to metabolize the aromatic hydrocarbons found in modern automotive paint ~
If you smoke on the job...then I can drink.
Impairment testing is a common sense solution to the problem.
Impairment Tests: An Alternative to Drug-Testing in the Workplace
While I'll argue the point that no one, not even your employer has any right to intrude on your privacy enough to determine what you do on YOUR time, I'll also argue they have EVERY right to determine whether or not your fit to do the job they hired you for.
Otherwise, they should be paying you 24/7 to follow their WORKPLACE policy.
So what happens when you have a bunch of unemployable stoners?
It’s gonna come out of our pocket one way or the other.
You’ve missed the point entirely, and no, that is not what I’m saying. And no, I don’t smoke.
You're of course correct, the problem with pot however is that it takes much longer to leave your system .... 6 months or more depending on how the drug test is taken.
You are aware that THC in pot is stored in human body fat cells and according to studies can have detrimental effects years after a pot smoker has stopped smoking pot, including emotional outbursts for starters, don't you?
THC is not stored in fat cells. The metabolites are what are stored in fat cells and the presence of those are what is detected in drug tests.
The “active” life of THC is only a couple/few hours.
So you’re conflating long-term negative effects with under the influence. OK.
I don't believe this is an accurate comparison. Just because .10 is "legally drunk" in some states doesn't mean that a person who blows .06 into a testing device isn't drunk or impaired. I've seen people become completely snookered after two glasses of wine. No way they'd blow .10 into a tester, yet they were drunk.
I've also seen people who can drink an awful lot, blow .10 into a testing device and appear to be perfectly sober. (They're what you might call "functional drunks.")
So any test for THC to test the "level" of inebriation would by nature be terribly flawed the same way an alcohol test is.
MJ doesn’t stay in a human body for one or two months. It’s the metabolites that are detected in drug tests, not THC.
THC itself has a very short shelf life.
No, it's not a "long term effect" if it's stored in fat cells and released into the system continually over time while a pot smoker continues to smoke pot.
“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.”
I predict that it will be only a matter of time before the “legal pot” states begin passing laws that state that employers may not discriminate against employees for “legal use” of marijuana during off-hours.
We may even see laws that bar employers from using drug testing altogether, or restrict such testing to those that can indicate “current impairment” (as distinguished from casual off-hours use).
What if your employer was able to test YOU for off-duty alcohol use?
Would you pass?
(BTW, I -would- pass, because I don’t drink and have never been drunk. Don’t use drugs, either, never did)
Perhaps you'd like to read This Article on THC Storage in Fat Cells and try again.
“You are aware that THC in pot is stored in human body fat cells and according to studies can have detrimental effects years after a pot smoker has stopped smoking pot, including emotional outbursts for starters, don’t you?”
Please cite the “studies” you’re referring to, ‘cause I think you might be confusing some facts.
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