Employers will still be allowed to take action against an employee who is impaired on-the-job, but only if an employee “manifests specific articulable symptoms of impairment.”
Category: Employment Protections
Certain government positions would be excluded from the protections under this law.
NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano said: “For millions of patients, cannabis is a legitimate therapeutic option. More and more, our laws and regulations are recognizing this fact and evolving their policies accordingly.”
Under the expanded law, employers may not discriminate against authorized patients of medical cannabis in the recruitment, hiring, designation, or termination process or when imposing disciplinary actions.
Council members decided 15 to 1 in favor of the measure, which “prohibits employers from requiring prospective employees to undergo testing for the presence of marijuana as a condition of employment”
Democratic Governor Ralph Northam has signed House Bill 1862 into law, which provides employment protections for state-registered medical cannabis patients.
This week, a letter led by Representatives Earl Blumenauer, Don Beyer, Jared Huffman, Mondaire Jones, Barabara Lee, and cosigned by 25 other members, called on the Biden Administration to “…act within its power to stop legitimizing unfair cannabis laws.”
The revisions make it clear that the federal Drug-Free Workplace Act — passed in 1988 — remains in place, and that federal employees “are required to refrain” from the use of either cannabis or other federally controlled substances “whether on or off duty.” Employees who do not do so will face disciplinary action.