The state and federal marijuana coverage battle is making a “litigious surroundings” for the trucking trade and contributing to the challenges of a significant labor scarcity, the top of the American Trucking Affiliation (ATA) advised Congress on Wednesday.
Throughout a listening to earlier than the Home Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Michael Bost (R-IL) requested ATA President Chris Spear about how a lot the state-level legalization motion is impacting the trucking sector, significantly because it considerations drug testing necessities.
Spear stated that it was a problem that “retains me up at night time,” emphasizing his concern about impaired driving and the authorized legal responsibility for the trade if an individual will get into an accident beneath the affect.
“We’re regulated by the federal authorities. We can not have anybody impaired utilizing marijuana or another narcotic working this tools,” he stated. “So this channel battle between the federal guidelines and the states permitting—this ambiguity is making a litigious surroundings, and we’re caught proper in the midst of it.”
“Anyone’s acquired to step as much as the plate and put security first. Wish to smoke weed at house? Smoke weed at house. If it’s authorized, superb,” he said. “Don’t get behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound car. We have to have robust requirements, and we have to implement the regulation.”
On the identical time, he stated that the problem is “powerful,” as a result of there’s a 78,000-worker deficit within the trucking sector and he desires to incentivize individuals to use. “This is a matter that, I pose to you all, we’ve set to work on.”
Spear didn’t explicitly acknowledge the challenges ensuing from federal drug screening necessities for truckers, however that seems to be a significant contributing issue to the labor scarcity—not individuals eager to drive whereas impaired however failing drug checks that may detect THC metabolites for weeks or months after an individual consumes.
Tens of hundreds of business truckers are testing constructive for marijuana as a part of the federally mandated screenings, current knowledge from the Division of Transportation (DOT) exhibits.
In 2022 alone, 40,916 truckers examined constructive for inactive THC metabolites. The quantity elevated by 32 % in comparison with 2021. And a big fraction of truckers who’ve examined constructive haven’t returned to the sector.
Final yr, DOT reiterated that the workforce it regulates is prohibited from utilizing marijuana and will proceed to be examined for THC, no matter state hashish coverage. Nonetheless, the division issued a discover in 2020 stating that it might not be testing drivers for CBD.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) despatched a letter to the top of DOT final yr, emphasizing that the company’s insurance policies on drug testing truckers and different business drivers for marijuana are unnecessarily costing individuals their jobs and contributing to produce chain points.
The division did suggest a brand new drug testing coverage final yr that would have important implications for staff who use marijuana off the job. Present DOT coverage mandates urine testing, but it surely really helpful that testing of oral saliva be added as an alternate possibility.
Relying on frequency of use, THC is usually detectable in saliva anyplace from one to 24 hours after use, in distinction to weeks or months for urine-based checks.
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A high Wells Fargo analyst stated final yr that there’s one predominant cause for rising prices and employee shortages within the transportation sector: federal marijuana criminalization and ensuing drug testing mandates that persist whilst extra states enact legalization.
Final yr, a coalition of greater than two dozen congressional Democrats filed invoice on selling office funding to fight local weather change, they usually need to increase the workforce nationwide by defending individuals in authorized marijuana states from being penalized resulting from federal drug testing insurance policies.
In the meantime, a senator despatched a letter to DOT final yr searching for an replace on that standing of a federal report into analysis boundaries which might be inhibiting the event of a standardized take a look at for marijuana impairment on the roads. The division is required to finish the report by November 2023 beneath a large-scale infrastructure invoice that President Joe Biden signed.
Specialists and advocates have emphasised that proof isn’t clear on the connection between THC concentrations in blood and impairment.
A research revealed in 2019, for instance, concluded that those that drive on the authorized THC restrict—which is often between two to 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood—weren’t statistically extra prone to be concerned in an accident in comparison with individuals who haven’t used marijuana.
Individually, the Congressional Analysis Service in 2019 decided that whereas “marijuana consumption can have an effect on an individual’s response occasions and motor efficiency…research of the impression of marijuana consumption on a driver’s threat of being concerned in a crash have produced conflicting outcomes, with some research discovering little or no elevated threat of a crash from marijuana utilization.”
One other research from final yr discovered that smoking CBD-rich marijuana had “no important impression” on driving potential, although all research individuals exceeded the per se restrict for THC of their blood.
The submit Lawmakers Should ‘Step Up’ And Tackle Federal-State Marijuana Battle, Trucking Government Tells Congress Amid Labor Scarcity appeared first on Marijuana Second.