Te workplace, too, necessitates fast-
The recreational use of marijuana forces employers to reconsider how legal use on personal time is handled by an employer’s drug testing policy.
rules of alcohol impairment for marijuana- related policies and yet there is no way to objectively measure marijuana impairment with urine, blood, oral fluid, or hair tests. With all of this confusion, the
overwhelming response from employers and the response supported by screening providers and legislators is to drop marijuana from the testing panel. It certainly is a quick fix, but that decision is both short-sighted and costly. A real solution requires a willingness to change the status quo and embrace the future of drug testing. Forward-thinking employers who take the lead and embrace new technology will also take the lead in talent and the profit.
The Tipping Point Advances in drug testing methodologies and the systems that support them have conservatively followed the path laid out by SAMHSA and the Department of Transportation, but the speed of legalization across the U.S. demands immediate use of cuting-edge science and technology as well as programs and policies that are more agile in order to support nonregulated testing.
16 datia focus
paced change. Positive trends like low unemployment, the flexibility of gig workers, and remote employment have mixed with the complications of the opioid epidemic and the overuse of certain prescription drugs. Te convergence of all of these developments is justifiably causing many employers to question their reliance on zero-tolerance policies. However, dropping marijuana from
the testing panel is not the answer, and dropping pre-employment testing altogether is also not the answer, especially when new tests can identify recent marijuana use. Both of these reactionary decisions negate the benefits of drug testing altogether and create avoidable safety risks. Te year 2020 requires a seismic change
in workplace drug testing practices. For this change to happen, employers and providers must be willing to embrace a holistic and fair approach that includes technology, programs, and policies that support the new economy and marijuana legalization in addition to protecting the safety of their employees and customers—and their company’s brand and value. Marijuana legalization is happening; continuing to turn a blind eye to that reality will not stop it. In fact, influencing the ways legalization occurs and offering tools to control its impact is the new role of screening advocacy.
The Need: Recovery- Supportive Workplaces Te recreational use of marijuana forces employers to reconsider how legal use on personal time is handled by an employer’s drug testing policy. Current testing methodologies identify use from 30 minutes to 90 days prior and make it impossible to show the difference between the two. In a tight labor market, finding and retaining qualified employees is difficult. Employers are struggling with the limitations of current technology
in identifying recent use that may be causing impairment during work hours and differentiating this from recreational use of marijuana during nonwork hours. In addition to employees’ legal access to marijuana, employers have also been grappling with the increase in prescription drug abuse. In both cases—the legalization of marijuana and the over-prescription of painkillers—the lack of research and education negatively impacts both employers and employees. Fortunately, employers and employees recognize that their current situation has less to do with their respective actions and more to do with a lack of leadership and oversight at the state and federal levels, so employees and employers are now working together to create a recovery-supportive workplace rather that a definitively punitive one. Supporting recovery also supports a safe
working environment and helps to create loyal employees in a tight labor market.1 However, recovery-focused workplaces aren’t the only paradigm shiſt demanded at the start of this decade—another is the creation of drug testing policies that recognize the importance of new breath testing technology that for the first time enables measurement of recent marijuana use, thus allowing the creation of a new and critically important onsite testing regimen for employers: pre-access testing for recent marijuana use.
The Approach: Pre-Access Testing Pre-access testing fundamentally shiſts an employer’s timing of drug testing to identify use during (or immediately before work) instead of drug testing at a time unrelated to workplace hours. Pre-access testing demonstrates to employees that employers do not care about legal drug use outside of work, but also indicates that employers have to care about drug use during work hours. Remember: New laws talk a lot about impairment, but unlike for alcohol—
2020 • Issue 2
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