California lawmakers on Tuesday gave closing approval to a invoice to guard staff who use marijuana off the job. If permitted by the governor, the laws would make California the seventh state within the nation to move employment protections for employees’ off-duty hashish use.
The measure, Meeting Invoice 2188 (AB-2188), would “make it illegal for an employer to discriminate in opposition to an individual in hiring, termination, or any time period or situation of employment, or in any other case penalize an individual” solely due to marijuana use whereas off the job, based on an abstract of the legislation. However Assemblymember Invoice Quirk, the sponsor of the laws, famous that AB-2188 doesn’t permit folks to work whereas impaired by hashish.
“Nothing on this invoice would permit somebody to come back (to work) excessive,” said Quirk.
Below the laws, employers could be prohibited from taking motion in opposition to an worker for failing a urine or hair screening for hashish metabolites. Assessments that measure or detect the presence of hashish metabolites solely present that the particular person ingested hashish in some unspecified time in the future, probably weeks earlier than the pattern is taken, and aren’t an indicator of current impairment.
The laws is supported by hashish advocates and labor teams together with United Meals and Industrial Staff (UFCW), Service Workers Worldwide Union (SEIU), California Nurses Affiliation, CA Board of Registered Nursing, and UDW/AFSCME Native 3930. Supporters of the invoice argue that staff shouldn’t be punished for utilizing marijuana whereas off the clock.
“Utilizing outdated hashish exams solely causes staff to really feel unsafe and harassed at work, it doesn’t enhance office security,” stated Matt Bell, secretary-treasurer for the United Meals and Industrial Staff Native 324.
The laws contains a number of exceptions designed to guard employers. The invoice doesn’t apply to employees within the “constructing and building trades” or to staff or candidates for positions that require a background test or safety clearance beneath federal laws. Moreover, the laws doesn’t preempt any federal or state statutes that require testing for managed substances and wouldn’t apply to employment selections based mostly on “scientifically legitimate” pre-employment drug take a look at strategies “that don’t display screen for psychoactive hashish metabolites.”
California Pioneered Hashish Legalization
California was the primary state to legalize the medicinal use of hashish in 1996, and 20 years later voters legalized the leisure use of marijuana by adults. The Nationwide Group for the Reform of Marijuana Legal guidelines (NORML) notes that six states (Nevada, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Montana and Rhode Island) have enacted legal guidelines to guard employees’ use of leisure hashish off the job and 21 states provide employee protections for medical marijuana sufferers.
“Hashish is authorized in California, and employees have a proper to have interaction in authorized exercise whereas away from the job. But numerous employees and job candidates are shedding job alternatives or being fired as a result of they take a look at optimistic for authorized, off-the-job use of marijuana on account of indiscriminate urine and hair metabolite exams,” said Dale Gieringer, the director of NORML’s California chapter. “Scientific research have failed to point out that urine testing is efficient at stopping office accidents. Numerous studies have discovered that employees who take a look at optimistic for metabolites don’t have any increased threat of office accidents.”
The California Chamber of Commerce is against the laws as a result of it could “create a protected standing for marijuana use” in state legislation that bans discrimination within the office.
“Put merely: marijuana use shouldn’t be the identical as defending employees in opposition to discrimination based mostly on race or nationwide origin,” the enterprise affiliation wrote in a letter to state lawmakers.
AB-2188 was first handed by the California State Meeting in Might, adopted by the approval with amendments by the state Senate on Monday. On Tuesday, the Meeting permitted the Senate model of the measure. The invoice now heads to the desk of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who has till the tip of September to resolve its destiny. If Newsom indicators the invoice into legislation, it’ll go into impact on January 1, 2024.