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 ...
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.
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."
Idiots. Pot is a drug. Same as alcohol...you don’t come to work stoned or drunk. You do, your fired.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
A stoned society is a better controlled society. Just look at what thier doing to our children and grandchildren
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.
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
Not a problem for employers who do drug testing.
If the employee fails the test he/she should be terminated.
Yet hospitals can make it mandatory for health care workers to get flu shots, or be fired. Go figure.
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.
People forget the infamous Maryland Amtrak wreck of 1987, which involved a stoned engineer. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Maryland_train_collision
On a side note - most of the whacked-out,'druggiest' people I've ever known all were on government-approved drugs.
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.
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).
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