About

Yes, even in states that medical marijuana is legalized. So if someone wants to apply for a job that regularly tests for marijuana, but also has to use medical marijuana for a chronic disease as prescribed by their doctor, what are they supposed to do? While it is true that the United States continues to be more and more accepting of medical marijuana usage, many places of employment are still far behind. Unless places of employment begin to change what kind of drugs they are testing for, they may find that they won’t get nearly as many quality job applicants in the near future. 

I was looking at jobs online today and saw one that required regular, random drug testing. Pardon me? What gives you the right when medical marijuana is legally prescribed to me through medical professionals? In the near future, however, we may soon be seeing a new way of sorting through job postings online. Hopefully, we will be able to identify and dismiss any of those jobs postings that are not medical marijuana-friendly. Imagine being able to ask LinkedIn to only display jobs that do not require employee drug testing. I hope that such testing will soon be a thing of the past, at least in regards to medical marijuana usage. 

All of this begs the question - is it far to drug test employees who have a medical marijuana card? The lines can get a bit blurry at times. First of all, you have to address the problem of whether or not your company is going to get behind the idea of compassionate care and medication alternatives to otherwise expensive, dangerous, and addictive medications. Opioid use and abuse is still a huge problem in the United States, and I would much prefer an employee who lights up weed after hours from time to time rather than someone who is addicted to painkillers day in and day out. 

Furthermore, at what point is the state or federal government going to step in and declare using medical marijuana as a medical right in some scenarios? It is fair to say, however, that there is some discrepancy in the type of job you may be interested in and if they allow medical marijuana usage outside of working hours. For example, some companies that use heavy machinery or big rigs would be less likely to allow drug usage of any kind, specifically because there is a lot of collateral involved and risk if things go wrong.

But what about for a low-key office or administrative role? Is it really so bad to use medical marijuana to treat one’s pain symptoms or chronic diseases? At some point, places of employment are going to have to be more specific on what they consider to be drug use and what they are going to be testing for. Medical marijuana may be a hard one to swing in the near future.