| MMJforDoctors.com |
The findings of some studies are surprising. Others, not so much.
Quest Diagnostics data that shows a nationwide increase in positive marijuana results during workplace drug tests — with the numbers even higher in Colorado and Washington — qualifies as the latter. However, a closer look at the numbers suggests that exercising caution before drawing sweeping conclusions would be wise. More at the Denver Westword.
Positive tests for pot have increased by about 20 percent in Colorado from 2012 to 2013, according to Quest Diagnostics, a company responsible for a huge number of work-related drug testing across the country.
But the director of the drug testing branch of Quest says it’s too early to draw any conclusions from the data, though it’s easy to draw a parallel between the increase in positive pot tests and the legalization limited amounts of pot to adults 21 and up. Sales of cannabis to adults didn’t start until January of 2014, so that would not factor into the data.
| theurbanshepherd.over-blog.com |
Operating under the Department of Transportation since its inception in 1966, the Federal Railroad Administration’s stated mission is to “enable the safe, reliable, and efficient movement of people and goods for a strong America, now and in the future”.
Since 1986, the FRA has been federally mandated to perform drug and alcohol tests on railroad employees. These tests include pre-employment screening, random and/or “reasonable suspicion” testing, and post-accident tests. Traditionally, the testing excluded what the railroads refer to as “maintenance-of-way employees”, those whose job it is to service the tracks and infrastructure.
But facing increasing pressure from Congress in the nation’s capital, the FRA has proposed an expansion of its drug testing to include all employees, and even independent contractors and volunteers.
| EricDrost/FlickrCommons |
| Cleveland Browns WR Josh Gordon says secondhand smoke led to a failed drug test |
One of the first things you learn as a stoner is how to dodge the bullet when it comes to getting busted. Some nights there might not have been enough Visine and cologne on the planet to cover up how baked you were when you thought you were fooling your parents coming home late.
When you do walk in a room all pie-eyed and reeking of reefer, maybe the oldest excuse in the book is to blame it on the “other guy”. When the phrase “secondhand smoke” became a household term when speaking on the dangers of cigarettes, the anti-pot crowd was quick to point out that secondhand marijuana smoke could be a danger as well.
These days, the tables have turned a bit, and savvy stoners are turning science against the system and citing “secondhand smoke” as the culprit anytime they get busted for weed.
| AmarandAgasi/FlickrCommons |
Drivers in the state of Washington may have had a strange encounter while stopped at a red light this past weekend. We’ve all probably had the less fortunate approach our idling vehicle and peddle for loose change, or have a guy try to sell a newspaper, or start washing the windshield while we wait. But when is the last time that someone bum-rushed your ride offering to give you $60 to take a brief “survey”?
That is precisely what happened beginning last Friday in Spokane and Yakima counties, and continued throughout the weekend. Government-funded orange-vested survey teams were tasked with bribing Washington motorists to hand over voluntary roadside breath, saliva, and blood samples, in exchange for the prospect of easy money.
| William Breathes/Toke of the Town. |
Florida Gov. Rick Scott doesn’t seem to get that drug testing welfare recipients isn’t just demoralizing, wrong and illegal — it’s stupid an ineffective. He won’t listen to his constituents and he won’t listen to the federal court system.Weeks after the Supreme Court refused to hear his argument for why all state employees should have to pee in cups, Scott has filed a new brief in appellate court asking to re-argue his right to drug-test all welfare recipients in Florida.
Linn State Technical College cannot force all of its students to submit to mandatory drug testing, according to U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey, who sided with the American Civil Liberties Union in a decision on Friday.
“The lack of a substantial and real public safety risk alone compels the conclusion that the drug-testing policy is unconstitutional as applied to these students,” reads the decision (on view below), which comes two years after the ACLU of Eastern Missouri first filed a lawsuit challenging the college’s new mandatory drug tests for all incoming students. In March, a federal judge blocked the controversial policy through an injunction and has now ruled that the tests are largely unlawful. Sam Levin with the Riverfront Times.
| Texas Gov. Rick Perry. |
Governor Rick Perry signed a bill into law Friday that will require people applying for unemployment benefits to submit to a drug test, if their responses to a screening questionnaire indicate possible drug use. The bill, written by Woodlands Republican Senator Tommy Williams, doesn’t set aside any new money for drug treatment programs, because of course it doesn’t. And if it’s anything like similar programs in other states, they’ll waste tens of thousands of dollars implementing it all while “saving” at most several hundreds when they “bust” some poor Texan who just wanted to get high one Saturday night with friends.
“The message is strong,” Perry said at a bill-signing ceremony today at the Capitol, according to the Tribune. “If you’ve got a drug problem, there are ways that we can help you get that licked, but we’re not going to entice individuals to not be responsible.” Dallas Observer has the rest.
| Halifax, Nova Scotia. |
It may seem counter intuitive to tell your employer “It’s none of your business what I do when I’m not here” when they ask for a drug test. But that’s what an employee with the Halifax Streets Department in Nova Scotia told his boss after his boss says he smelled weed in the city truck in which the employee was a passenger.
The employee, listed only as “Mr. Jeffery” in the ruling, says he is a recreational user of cannabis and that he would have tested positive, but he maintains that there was no evidence of impairment or on-the-job drug use and refused the drug test – and the courts have backed the employee’s decision.
Opponents of legalization measures often complain about all manner of potential societal harm, including possible negative impact on employment and job productivity.
Now, such critics have new ammunition with which to make their case — a study that shows the percentage of people failing drug tests is at its highest point in five years. Denver Westword has the story.