CMSbored

Wyoming troopers are going to have a blast in the summer busting Coloradans who "accidentally" bring their weed when they invade our lakes.

BruceWard

Darn and I just cancelled my trip to Denver this week

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snowvols

I know that, but I know most companies if you are involved in an accident you get a blood test. Not saying you are high which I know you aren't, but traces of THC in your blood could still get you fired.

I used the nicotine as an example that just because a substance is legal you can still get fired. It all depends on the company.

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Skinny Bam

Well said.

poutanen

I smoked daily for 4 years or so. I was so into it I was one of the lead organizers for the Toronto Marijuana March in the early 2000s. One day I woke up and said to myself "meh, I'm done smoking for a while, time to focus my energy elsewhere" and I quit cold turkey. See below for more info...

Exactly, it is a habitual addiction, not a physical addiction. It may be just as hard to break for some but in general if you feel like quitting smoking pot, you quit smoking pot. How many cigarette smokers and casual drinkers just quit one day and never go back? My guess is almost none.

The only people "dependent" on weed are people using it to help control pain, nausea, etc. associated with terminal illnesses. A habitual pot smoker is not "dependent".

Alcohol is metabolized in your liver to acetaldehyde. An alcohol test by either blood or breath measures your blood-alcohol content. This test is pretty accurate at determining impairment at the time of the test. (i.e. if you had an accident at work and were subjected to a D&A test, if you came back positive for alcohol over the legal driving limit, you were likely impaired at the time)

THC is metabolized into THC and THC... lol (Delta9-TCH is metabolized into two other forms of THC, and the psycoactive metabolites only stay in your system for a relatively short period of time (a few hours) before they are metabolized into non-psychoactive forms of THC. D&A tests don't distinguish WHICH metabolite is being quantified, so they are not accurate at determining impairment as far as I know.

Therefore, you'd have a reasonable case if you were fired for testing positive for THC in your system, as an employer only has grounds to dismiss if you are likely impaired at work. I'm sure there are many jurisdictions that handle this differently, but there is a fine line on Charter/Constitutional rights when it comes to D&A testing. Furthermore, if there is a chance you are "addicted" to a substance generally speaking the company has to find you help before they can just outright fire you. So the dependence argument comes back to bite us in the ass there. If we say it's not addictive, we can't argue that we shouldn't be fired because we have a "problem"...

ThunderChunky

They aren't what if, they are when. Which need to be answered before you pass a law. That procedure is a reckless way to govern. I'm not against it. Just pondering what the solutions are to these situations. Which are good questions. The National Guard is state run though, for the most part. Nothing like this has quite happened and I'm curious to see how it plays out and how it'll be handled.

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backstop13

They need to legalize in TN too and chance the Federal Aviation Administration rules to allow for marijuana use so I can get my smoke on. Glad to hear the people of Colorado and Washington took a stand. Wonder how much money the bastard industrial prison complex fuckers stand to lose if the federal courts uphold legalizing pot!

davidj

Some employers have zero tolerance drug policies that are different from their alcohol and tobacco dependence policies. It all comes down to how the company's policy is written and what they're willing to tolerate from their employees. Just because a state relaxes something doesn't mean that an employer will relax it too.

While many employers have random drug testing policies in place (have you checked your HR policies lately?) they rarely do check except when one is hired. Depending on the employer, look for some of these "random" drug tests to actually be administered in the future.

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killclimbz

I work at a company where if you show up intoxicated to work, you're done. Alcohol is legal, yet I have yet to hear of any challenges to this policy.

I don't see very many companies worrying about if they can fire or not. If you are a driver, you're probably not going to be able to smoke. State legal or not. Pre-Employment drug screenings are probably not going to change. If you piss hot for THC, they probably won't hire you. Regardless if it's legal or not, they are free to make that choice. Random drug tests in the work place, aside from people who drive machinery, are pretty rare. Probably because it gets rather pricey to do so.

Don't forget, this is a "fire at will" state. You do not have a right to your job. You can get let go for just about any reason and there is little recourse in most cases.

turbospartan

Ehhh... they sort of already do that around here. It's more commonly accepted than one might think. Now, people aren't walking around with huge bongs and doing it in the middle of the day, but I've seen it before. Right on the 16th street mall (pedestrian mall downtown Denver) I've seen people on benches smoking. ANY concert at Red Rocks or Pepsi Center. April 20th go to Boulder or even downtown Denver and there is a haze in the sky. Go hiking on pretty common trails - you'll smell it. Every ski resort I've been to, I've run into it. Hell, at the beach at a-basin, people don't even try to hide it.

All I'm saying is that it is a lot different out here in that people seem to just mind their own business. And this was all before this proposal passed.