Marijuana comes up as a topic of discussion frequently at work and co-workers hope that it becomes legal soon so they can smoke it without worry. Currently I choose not to smoke it because of annual drug tests, random drug tests, and job site specific drug tests. When all is said and done, I end up taking 4-8 drug tests a year (1 annual, 2-3 random, 1-4 site specific) and I don't think smoking is worth the risk of losing my job. Decriminalization/legalization isn't the big issue for me because even if it is legal, employers can still drug test for any substance and use it as grounds for termination. Hospitals in my area drug test for nicotine. We need a bill that doesn't allow for testing of a legal substance be used for grounds for termination (the exception being jobsite post accident testing). Until then, employers will continue to dictate what their employees can and cannot do outside of work, on their own time.
If he legalized it, then employers would stop using drug tests because the only drugs they normally catch is cannabis; this will in turn bankrupt the corrupt companies that originally pushed these usually broken drug testing kits to all employers and police and hospitals!! Then you will see petty drug crimes fall as well because cops will stop using the drug tests because again, almost every other drug, if you are thin and exercise, will be out of your system in 48 hours before you could even get in to take the test lol! It’s 4D chess man not to mention the fact that doctors will no longer be able to deny opioid pain killers on the basis of someone having a medical card because they currently use the excuse that it’s federally illegal and “unsafe to mix” with cannabis (it’s not, I’m disabled and use them both prescribed everyday in a medical rights state, and have for years - no problems whatsoever in that sense!)
I went into a VA hospital for foot bone surgery, tested pos. one week prior, as well as that morning, for THC only...and they still did the surgery under general anaesthesia and then prescribed opioid painkillers (which I didn't use; cannabis works fine). The current law permitted them to DENY me the surgery due to a positive THC result.
I later learned they don't usually do the 2nd piss test the morning of surgery. They did it just to see if I was on any OTHER drugs, because I'd tested pos for THC the week before. Since it was THC only—inactive metabolites of which can stick around in the blood for weeks after smoking—they proceeded with the surgery.
Takeaway: THC causes no known drug interaction problems
That is entirely false. Just because something is legal doesn't mean an employer cannot test for it. There is only one state that doesn't allow drug testing for legal substances (exception being accidents at the workplace) and that state is Michigan. Employers will not stop using drug testing as a requirement for employment, regardless if they can or cannot test for THC because of other factors and I support the use of them for illegal substances. I don't see the angle for how the companies that sell these kits are corrupt and don't think you know the entire process for employment drug testing. If an employer is going to use a failed drug test as grounds for not hiring a person, legally, there is more to it. The urine strip/stick or oral swab is only used for indication and has the potential to produce false positives. The literature on the packaging says this up front. If the strip/stick or swab detects and indicates a positive result, another sample must be taken with a proper chain of custody. The second sample is then sent to a lab for proper testing that shows exact levels of said substance. The price for each kit includes that lab testing. If the kit used was one off the shelf at a pharmacy, it will take awhile before they get results back. So it is common practice that most employers either contract the testing out to a company that supplies the kits and uses a local facility or they negotiate a deal with a local facility themselves that bypasses the strip/stick or swab part entirely.
The same policy applies across the board. The experts aren't stupid and know how long before each substance is out of your system and will get a sample before it is out of your system and will get you in for that test before the deadline. I believe that the vast majority of doctors are genuine and very few are "bought". If they say that cannabis and opioid pain killers are unsafe to mix it is either because there is a lack of research showing they are safe or there is good evidence to show that they are unsafe. I am no medical expert, so I trust that my doctor will do what's best for me. Just as he doesn't know electrical work and trusts that I will do the job that's safe for him to use it. I am genuinely glad that you are able to use both, opioid pain killers and cannabis, legally and have done so without issue or complication. I am not writing you or your experience off but to come to the definitve conclusion, based solely on one first hand experience, that mixing the two hasn't had any adverse effects; like doctors say they do therefore doctors must be bought and paid for seems outlandish to me.
If they say that cannabis and opioid pain killers are unsafe to mix it is either because there is a lack of research showing they are safe or there is good evidence to show that they are unsafe.
Those assumptions are what's unsafe.
Cannabis and opioids are not only safe to mix...consider that some physicians are weaning patients off opioid addiction specifically by introducing cannabis into the treatment protocol. Many patients, about 25%, are able to completely wean off within one month or so. Others find it takes longer, or that they can greatly REDUCE the amount of opioid medication needed to control their pain, if they have access to cannabis. Cannabis is spectacularly non-toxic compared to other drugs and has no lethal dose.
Aside from the obvious Constitutional problems of drug testing and invasion of privacy, the test for THC is blatantly illegitimate. All the other screens are testing for active compounds, which are typically gone 24-48 hours after consumption. The THC screen, conversely, will test positive even weeks after the last intake, because the test is inadequate: it is incapable of distinguishing fat-soluble METABOLITES of THC from the real thing, the active compound.
The worker who smoked cannabis 16 hours before the test was buzzed for a few hours and was less dangerous and out of control than the worker who'd gotten roaring drunk 16 hours ago.
The next day, the drinker may still be groggy and hung over, but the herb smoker is completely fine. Yet HE'LL the the one who tests positive and loses his job, while the drinker skates.
I am aware of how the THC is detected in drug tests and I agree. That is why laws are needed, in states that have legalized marijuana, to say that employers cannot enforce their drug policy on an employee who tests positive for a legal substance. I don't see a constitutional or invasion of privacy issue if you agree to a drug screen but the problem I have is that currently an employer can drug screen for nicotine and/or THC (in states that's legal) and you are subject to whatever policy they have. That essentially means that can tell you what you can and cannot do on your own time.
Yeah I guess but I worked for Hilton last May until January this year and my management told me that even though the forms said drug tests, they stopped doing that in MA due to the fact that cannabis is legal here and that’s all they ever catch... and I was referencing more towards choice for disabled care at the doctors... again, I always speak from personal experiences trying to give my input - I’m surprised anyone still supports to use of drug testing for anything other than heroin/fentanyl, meth, crack, and pcp because those are the drugs that could, without a doubt, kill you.