With the legalization of recreational marijuana
use in mid-October, employers are starting to
ask questions about their internal policies and
how they will be addressing this issue. Interestingly, a significant
part of the conversation is actually not about recreational use but
rules surrounding medicinal consumption.
Medicinal has been around for a while now. But the number of
people affected is relatively small, which meant many employers
simply didn’t have to worry about it because they didn’t encoun-ter
the issue. The arrival of recreational use, though, affects all of us
and every employer is now facing policy questions: Will we treat it
the same as booze in the workplace or will we expand the scope of
our rules?
That seems straightforward enough – if you’re impaired at work,
whether from booze or weed – you are in violation. But that’s
what has triggered all the conversation around medicinal. It is a
BY PAUL MARTIN, MARTIN CHARLTON COMMUNICATIONS
THE BOTTOM LINE
prescription and differs from booze, which, to the best of my knowl-edge,
has never been prescribed by a doctor to ease the symptoms
of a health problem.
Oh, the complications. Given that marijuana can stay in the
bloodstream for weeks, even medicinal use can be problematic. But
then again, we don’t penalize workers who are taking other pre-scription
medications, even ones that caution about drowsiness or
operating equipment.
So, here we are digging more deeply into the implications medici-nal
marijuana use when the only real change that is headed our way
relates to recreational use. Sometimes it just takes time for an issue
to come full circle.
The best information I’ve seen on this comes from an employ-er’s
guide prepared by Colin Rooke at Butler Byers Insurance in
Saskatoon. It offers a long list of questions an employer can explore
in the pursuit of figuring out just how to handle this new reality.
Sometimes
It Takes a
Bit of Time
Given that marijuana can stay in
the bloodstream for weeks, even
medicinal use can be problematic.
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