Washington, DC: A plurality of Americans oppose workplace policies that permit employers to drug test employees for cannabis in states where its off-the-job use is legal, according to nationwide polling dataprovided by YouGov.com.
Forty-four percent of respondents said that they opposed “allowing employers to test workers for marijuana in states where [it] is legal.” Thirty-six percent of respondents supported the policy and 20 percent were undecided.
In recent months, several states – such as Nevada, New Jersey, New York, and Montana – have enacted legislation limiting employers’ ability to either pre-screen applicants for past marijuana exposure or refuse to hire them. New York’s policy further limits employers’ ability to sanction current employees for their off-hours marijuana use absent evidence of “articulable symptoms of cannabis impairment.”
City officials in several metropolitan areas – such as Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and St. Louis – have also recently adopted local laws prohibiting marijuana-specific pre-employment and random drug screenings for public employees in non-safety sensitive positions.
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