Proposed California Law Would End Cannabis Testing For Employees

A new bill recently introduced to the California legislature would protect employees from being fired or excluded from a job because they tested positive for using cannabis. Despite the fact that recreational cannabis was legalized over five years ago in the state of California, many residents still live in fear of losing employment over workplace policies that prevent them from using cannabis in their free time when they are off the clock.

Assembly Bill 1256 was introduced by Assemblyman Bill Quirk, and also sponsored by NORML, the cannabis rights advocacy group. 

The bill would prevent employers from using hair or urine tests as justification to discriminate against an employee. 

Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, says that these types of tests can’t determine if an employee is impaired on the job, but only indicates whether or not they have used cannabis sometime recently.

“It is those tests that we want to ban, because they don’t detect anything related to impairment. You can’t judge a worker by their urine. If you do that, you’re going to have a piss-poor workforce,” Gieringer told the Sacramento Bee. 

Gieringer compared the popular workplace policy to assuming an employee must be coming to work drunk because there are beer or wine bottles in the trash outside of their home. 

The proposed bill would still allow employees to give workers blood tests because the results for these tests are more thorough and would be able to indicate whether or not the employee was currently under the influence. 

As the bill is currently written, there are several businesses that will be exempt, and they will still have the power to discriminate against employees based on cannabis use that takes place at home. This includes construction businesses and people working with heavy machinery. It is likely that the transportation industry will also still maintain the power to test their employees for cannabis. 

Businesses that are federally required to test for THC would also be exempt from the new bill, as would those that receive federal benefits for specific drug testing programs. This applies mostly to federal workers and businesses connected to the military or a government agency of some kind.

Lawmakers are still arguing over the specific language and stipulations contained in the bill, and it is estimated that it may not be taken up for a vote until next year. 

Current laws in the state allow employers to screen potential employees for previous cannabis use before they begin work, but only allows for further random drug testing in circumstances where there is reasonable suspicion that a person has been using on the job. However, there are some regions in the state that have already moved forward with local laws to prevent employers from testing for cannabis. For example, San Francisco enacted a law to protect cannabis-using workers from discrimination shortly after the substance was legalized for recreational use in California. However, businesses that have some federal obligation to test for cannabis are still exempt in San Francisco.