Will drug tests for weed go away forever?

I read an article on the American Bar Association’s website about whether workplace marijuana testing will wear off over time.

After all, the vast majority of Americans are in favor of legalizing cannabis, and much of the population lives in “cannabis-friendly states.” This means there are more people who have a legal right to use cannabis in their state – but could potentially have problems with their jobs.

To understand this, we need to delve into the nature of the cannabis test and why it became the standard. We’ll also look at what these new canna-friendly norms mean for multi-state companies right now – especially when it comes to corporate policy.

What are the reasons for workplace tests?

Before we can dive into the future of workplace testing, we first need to take a look at when it originally began. According to the ABA, US corporate culture got its “hack-on” for drug testing in the workplace during the Raegan administration.

You know the movie star who became president, who helped found DARE and escalated the war on drugs. Raegan ordered federal employees to undergo drug tests in order to be employed by the government. Shortly thereafter, the private sector did the same.

The reason for this policy change was that “pre-work drug testing increases safety and productivity in the workplace”.

Of course, in the 1980s, you could say shit like this, pay a bunch of scientists to put together some circumstantial “evidence” to back up their premise – and “presto-change-o” – you put a national policy in place in the very fabric of capitalism.

The new drug testing firms that sprang up to meet the demand for tests, drug kits, and anything practice-related were thrilled. They had a new, seemingly endless source of income backed by government incentives.

Even if someone came and empirically proved that cannabis does not reduce workplace safety and that cannabis users, on average, have fewer sick days than their non-smoking counterparts.

At that point there was money to be made and both Uncle Sam and Corporate Carl were groping for American freedom while claiming that everything was to their advantage!

Fortunately – things like that will never happen in 2021 … do they?

Oops – drugs won!

The 1980s and 1990s were the “good years” if you ask a drug warrior. “Drug warriors” – as they liked to call themselves, were people who actively profited from the war on drugs, be it local law enforcement or any federal agency that politicians could invent.

Then they could be “tough on crime” by getting rid of nonviolent drug users – while “failing to solve the crime” where it mattered most. Do you know like human trafficking, murders and rape.

As long as they had a couple of red-eyed Rastas behind bars, they would get money from Uncle Sam and eventually the old military toys.

However, by the 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was in full swing and it turned out that a small plant known as cannabis was really helping patients with a disease called AIDS wasting syndrome. It has also reportedly helped with pain management, cancer, glaucoma, etc.

All of a sudden – being tough on crime meant attacking medical patients with a tank, and well, the looks would surely ruin any argument for maintaining such a policy. But by that point it was too late – people found medical help with cannabis, and eventually some states began legalizing it for medical use.

Fast forward a few decades and more than half of US adults have tried marijuana. It’s still illegal at the federal level, but the federal government’s powers to maintain the facility’s ban have shrunk significantly.

Once the federal government removes cannabis from the CSA

Then things get interesting. Even now, under modern cannabis laws, companies have a hard time knowing how to respond. The government would have implemented these laws competently and incorporated them into corporate culture – but its inability to correct its mistakes has left chaos for the time being.

However – at some point the federal government will have to give in to the will of the people. This means that legalization is inevitable.

Testing people for cannabis would be problematic at this point, and the chances of companies keeping their jobs will be shockingly slim.

This is because cannabis can stay in your system for up to 90 days (mostly around 30 days or a few weeks if you rarely smoke). This means that someone could have smoked a joint at a birthday party last week and then get fired a week later for “having cannabis in their system”.

If the safer job premise is never tested for impairment – only for the presence of an actual drug … well, I hate to say America has been betrayed by its politicians.

And that leads us to where we are today, in a limbo that makes companies scratch their heads.

A few things a company can do to keep up with the times

According to ABA, there are a few things that companies can do now from a legal perspective. First, customize different codes based on regions. If you are in a state with stricter laws, you can – create “state-specific” clauses.

The other alternative is to simply stop this archaic practice. Perhaps we should judge people not by the content of their urine sample, but by their productivity and character.

The sticky end result

At the end of this joint, we’ll wrap it up with a quick reminder that one day you can buy weed in a Seven Eleven. Sure, it won’t be the best bud, but it will do the job.

Cannabis has already made it into the mainstream zeitgeist – hell, if Iron Mike Tyson smokes the Cheeba and runs a cannabis farm – then you know people smoked!

Let’s get rid of this intrusive and degrading practice of screening people for drugs. Plus, drugs don’t tell you who a person is – if that’s what you want, just check their browsing history!

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