Cannabis in the workplace – Cannabis | weed | marijuana

Workers who use cannabis 24/7 are no more likely to be victims of workplace accidents than non-cannabis users. That’s according to a new study published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.

The longitudinal study of Canadian workers appears to have debunked the zero tolerance policy. Jobs that require drug testing can also be challenging.

However, the researchers found that people who use cannabis at work are almost twice as likely to be involved in an accident at work.

Details of the cannabis-in-the-workplace study

This workplace cannabis study examined 2,745 Canadian workers. Some of the participants were employed in security-related positions. The researchers followed the workers for two years, and 11.3 percent of their sample suffered on-the-job injuries.

According to researchers, 10.2 percent of workplace injuries fell into the non-consumer category. 11.14 percent were consumers who participated at home and outside of work hours.

Those who used cannabis at work (or two hours before) were 20.13 percent more likely to be involved in an accident at work.

“Compared to not using in the past year, the risk of a workplace injury was 1.97 times higher among workers who reported using at work,” the study said. “No statistically increased correlation was found for use outside of the workplace.”

“The results of this novel study suggest that use of cannabis in the workplace, rather than outside of work, is a risk factor for workplace injuries,” the authors concluded.

This study of cannabis in the workplace contradicts previous findings that supported the notion that cannabis users were more likely to be involved in an accident.

The reason for this, the researchers write, is the time factor.

“The results suggest that when considering the potential occupational safety implications of a worker’s cannabis use, it is important to consider when that use occurs,” the authors write. “Specifically, only use in the immediate vicinity of work appears to be a risk factor for workplace injuries, but not use outside of work.”

It concludes, “Zero-tolerance policies that prohibit cannabis use entirely, including use outside of work, may be too broad and inconsistent with the findings of this study.”

Problems with the cannabis-in-the-workplace study

While the results for cannabis users may be more or less positive, the study’s methodology is not without criticism. Hold,

Pattern Recruitment

The study used a split-panel longitudinal design, recruiting individuals primarily from pre-existing panels of households who agreed to participate. This could lead to a bias in the selection. Also, using random voting to recruit some respondents may not ensure a representative sample.

Generalizability of the cannabis in the workplace study

The results of the study may only be applicable to some Canadian workers because the sample was limited to people who were at least 18 years old, were currently employed and worked 15 or more hours per week for companies with five or more employees. This inclusion criterion could exclude certain subgroups of workers with different risks of injury at work or different patterns of cannabis use.

Self-Reported Data

The study draws on self-reported data on cannabis use, workplace injuries, and other variables. Self-reported data may be subject to memory errors, social desirability errors, and other sources of measurement error, affecting the accuracy of the results.

Time delay in data collection

Researchers collected data on cannabis use and covariates one year prior to assessing workplace injuries. This time lag may not capture immediate and more direct associations between cannabis use and workplace injuries.

result measure

Researchers based outcome measures for workplace injuries on a single yes/no item. This probably lacks the necessary nuance to fully understand the nature and severity of the participants’ injuries.

Assessing cannabis use

The study categorized participants based on their on-the-job and non-workplace cannabis use in the past year. However, it does not provide information on the frequency, amount, methods of cannabis use, or the type of strain. These could be crucial in understanding the link between cannabis use and workplace injuries.

Accounting for missing data

The researchers used several imputations to fix missing data. However, depending on the assumptions made during imputation, the process can introduce additional uncertainty in the results.

statistical approach

While researchers used regression analysis to estimate associations, we cannot infer causality from observational studies.

Cannabis in the workplace

This is not the first study examining cannabis in the workplace. In 2021, the National Bureau of Economic Research found that legal cannabis led to higher productivity and a reduction in work-related injuries.

But like the study above, it was just an association. Whether cannabis can cause (or prevent) workplace injuries is still an open question.

However, according to available research, using cannabis outside of business hours has not yet negatively impacted your work performance the next day.