The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is proposing a new drug testing policy that could have significant implications for workers who use marijuana off the job.<\/p>\n
Current DOT policy mandates urine testing, which advocates and experts view as problematic because, for one, THC metabolites can show up in a person\u2019s urine for weeks or months after consumption\u2014resulting in false positive results for people who are not actually impaired on the job.<\/p>\n
The practice of forcing workers to urinate in a collection jar is also viewed as a particularly invasive procedure. Now, in a notice published in the Federal Register late last month, the department is recommending that testing of oral saliva be added as an alternate option.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will give employers a choice that will help combat employee cheating on urine drug tests and provide a more economical, less intrusive means of achieving the safety goals of the program,\u201d DOT said.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Backing us at the $25\/month level also gets you access to our Bill Tracker so you won\u2019t miss any important marijuana legislation in your state.<\/strong> But looked at from another perspective, oral testing could also prevent people who casually use cannabis from being penalized for consuming weeks prior to a urine test. That\u2019s because, depending on frequency of use, THC is generally detectable in saliva anywhere from one to 24 hours after use, according to the notice<\/a>.<\/p>\n Further, the DOT proposal says there would be a \u201c4 nanogram per milliliter screening test cutoff for THC,\u201d which \u201cwould detect use of marijuana while eliminating possibilities of positive tests resulting from passive exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n That recommendation is based on research from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which \u201cconcluded that a 4 ng\/mL screening test cutoff for THC would detect use of marijuana while eliminating possibilities of positive tests resulting from passive exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n Advocates are celebrating the move, saying that while such tests can unfortunately nab people who aren\u2019t still high from cannabis use the previous day, they will greatly cut down on false positives overall as compared to urine screening.<\/p>\n \u201cOral fluid testing may not be perfect, but it\u2019s a big improvement<\/a> over the urine tests now required by DOT,\u201d California NORML Director Dale Gieringer told Marijuana Moment. \u201cUnlike urine tests, oral fluid tests allow for weekend, off-the-job use of marijuana by workers in safety-sensitive jobs. They are also far less invasive of bodily privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not about to wait around for the government to eliminate all forms of marijuana drug testing\u2014a highly unlikely prospect while it remains a scheduled drug\u2014when we can relieve many workers now of the indignity of having to piss in a cup for their jobs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A public comment period for DOT\u2019s proposed rule change is open until March 30.<\/p>\n On the other side of the spectrum, another federal agency proposed last year that they should expand workplace drug testing<\/a> by allowing certain employers to collect and analyze samples of workers\u2019 hair\u2014a move critics say would lead to disproportionate job-related punishments for people of color.<\/p>\n Workplace drug testing issues continue to be raised, especially as more states move to legalize cannabis in some form and many industries are facing workforce shortages.<\/p>\n For example, House appropriations legislation and attached reports passed by the House last year<\/a>\u00a0directed federal government agencies to\u00a0reconsider policies that fire employees for using cannabis<\/a> in compliance with state law. But that provision was not included in the omnibus package released by the chamber on Tuesday.<\/p>\n The White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recently issued a memo to federal agencies that says admitting to past marijuana use\u00a0should not automatically disqualify people<\/a>\u00a0from being employed in the federal government.<\/p>\n Last month, a\u00a0top Wells Fargo analyst says that there\u2019s one main reason for rising costs and worker shortages in the transportation sector: federal marijuana criminalization and resulting drug testing mandates<\/a> that persist even as more states enact legalization.<\/p>\n In January, a coalition of more than two dozen congressional Democrats filed bill on promoting workplace investment to combat climate change, and they want to boost the workforce nationwide by protecting people in legal marijuana states<\/a> from being penalized due to federal drug testing policies.<\/p>\n Just last week, the Illinois House of Representatives passed legislation to protect workers from being fired for using cannabis<\/a> in their free time, with some exceptions.<\/p>\n Also last week, a Washington, D.C. Council committee unanimously approved a bill to ban most workplaces from subjecting job applicants to pre-employment marijuana testing<\/a>. It would expand on previous legislation the D.C. Council approved to protect local government employees against\u00a0workplace discrimination due to their use of medical cannabis<\/a>.<\/p>\n This week, the St. Louis County Council approved a bill to ban pre-employment and random drug testing for cannabis<\/a> for most county workers.<\/p>\n Following the enactment of adult-use legalization in New York, the state Department of Labor announced a policy change barring most employers from drug testing certain workers for marijuana<\/a>.<\/p>\n Also, most government workers in Kansas City, Missouri will no longer face pre-employment drug tests for marijuana<\/a> under an ordinance that the City Council approved last year.<\/p>\n New York Regulators Unanimously Advance Rule To Let People With Marijuana Convictions Open Shop Before Big Businesses Can Enter Market<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Federal Transportation Agency Proposes New Marijuana Testing Policies To Reduce False Positives<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is proposing a new drug testing policy that could have significant implications for workers who use marijuana off the job. Current DOT policy mandates urine testing, which advocates and experts view as problematic because, for one, THC metabolites can show up in a person\u2019sContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53504,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53503\/revisions\/53504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Federal Transportation Agency Proposes New Marijuana Testing Policies To Reduce False Positives<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"