![](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/MM_Bill_Tracker_V5_blank-174.jpg\"){kind=tracking}
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
An Illinois Senate committee\u00a0began debate this week on a bill that would\u00a0protect workers from being fired for using cannabis on their free time.\u00a0With some exceptions, the measure\u00a0would prohibit employers from firing workers or discriminating against job applicants merely for testing positive for marijuana use.<\/p>\n
The House of Representatives already passed a version of the legislation<\/a>, sponsored by Rep. Bob Morgan (D), on a\u00a061\u201341 vote earlier this month.<\/p>\n At\u00a0a hearing of the Senate Executive Committee on Wednesday, senators spent about half an hour discussing details of the bill before its Senate sponsor, Sen. Robert Peters (D), abruptly paused the debate.\u00a0Amid a series of critical questions from Republicans on the panel, Peters announced that he was pulling the bill from the record and would return to it later.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m gonna make this easier,\u201d he said in response to a string of hypotheticals about when certain workers could be fired under the bill. \u201cI\u2019m gonna pull this from the record for right now, and I\u2019ll come back.\u201d<\/p>\n Peters earlier in the hearing had expressed optimism that the discussion would proceed smoothly. \u201cThis is a very negotiated bill,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m very excited for a very simple, nice, pleasant conversation with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n It was not immediately clear following Wednesday\u2019s hearing when the committee might return to the proposal,\u00a0HB 4116<\/a>. After the panel adjourned, the bill\u2019s status changed to \u201cpostponed\u201d on the state legislature\u2019s website. Neither Peters nor Morgan responded to emails from Marijuana Moment.<\/p>\n \u2014 The measure in its current version would protect workers who use lawful products off of job premises during nonworking hours and when the employee is not on call. Workers at entities that are contractors of the federal Department of Transportation would not receive the protection, nor would the bill add any additional protections under the state\u2019s workers\u2019 compensation law.<\/p>\n The legislation contains various other carveouts for certain categories of employees. For example, a positive THC test result could still be grounds for termination in jobs where workers operate heavy machinery or aircraft, carry a weapon, perform emergency services or handle other safety-sensitive tasks. Companies could also still fire employees for being impaired by cannabis while at work.<\/p>\n Organizations that exist to promote drug abstinence would also be exempt from the change.<\/p>\n A short\u00a0amendment proposed by Peters and adopted by the Senate panel would also allow workers to be fired over a positive cannabis test if their jobs involve using heavy machinery in manufacturing. As passed by the House, the bill would have applied only to workers using heavy machinery specifically at retail distribution<\/em> centers.<\/p>\n Earlier, House lawmakers adopted two amendments to the legislation before approving it.\u00a0One\u00a0replaced the original bill in its entirety, and\u00a0another\u00a0that modified the new language.<\/p>\n Some observers, including local news talk radio station WROK<\/a>, have previously pointed out that the bill as currently written appears to protect only workers who test positive for relatively low amounts of cannabis. Among the bill\u2019s exceptions, it says employers can fire workers whose test results meet or exceed the legal limits set forth in the state\u2019s vehicle code<\/a>, which is meant to prohibit impaired driving.<\/p>\n In Illinois, drivers are considered impaired if they test positive for THC at a concentration of greater than 5 nanograms per milliliter of blood\u2014or 10 ng\/mL of other bodily fluids, such as saliva or urine\u2014within two hours of driving. That limit is seen as too low by some critics, who note that THC levels can remain high in users\u2019 bloodstreams days or weeks after demonstrable impairment.<\/p>\n Setting a similar limit for workers in general could mean employees\u2019 jobs would be at risk even for off-duty cannabis use, for instance smoking a joint the night before work and then showing up the next morning, even if that worker demonstrates no indication of impairment.<\/p>\n During Wednesday\u2019s hearing, Peters framed the bill as a necessary reform to respect workers\u2019 privacy following the state legislature\u2019s 2019 legalization of cannabis for adults. He said\u00a0he views the legislation as only the starting point for how to square employees\u2019 rights with businesses\u2019 need to ensure workplace safety.<\/p>\n \u201cThis to me feels like this will be an ongoing conversation as we enter this new, post-legal environment,\u201d Peters said, adding that the proposed reform was motivated by stories of job applicants who were \u201cgoing in for a job and they weren\u2019t able to get it because we didn\u2019t have anything in the law that provided the necessary protections.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite Peters\u2019s hope for an amicable debate, Republicans pressed the senator on specifics during Wednesday\u2019s hearing, suggesting the proposal would be onerous for employers and overstep boundaries on government control over private business.<\/p>\n Sen. Jil Tracy (R) questioned the boundaries of the bill\u2019s exemptions, noting that it leaves the term \u201cheavy machinery\u201d undefined and appears to exempt workers in retail settings from the privacy protections but not workers in otherwise similar wholesale settings.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will continue to have conversations around this,\u201d Peters replied.<\/p>\n \u201cHave you ever heard the term \u2018letting Pandora out of the box\u2019?\u201d Tracy shot back.<\/p>\n Republican Sen. Sue Rezin asked how the process for companies declaring safety-sensitive positions would work. She\u00a0said businesses in what she described as her \u201cchemical corridor\u201d district had told her they have difficulty finding enough workers who test negative for THC.<\/p>\n \u201cI often hear too, in our area, from employers, [that] it\u2019s hard to get good people to work for us because they\u2019ve got marijuana in their system,\u201d she said. \u201cI just want to make sure there\u2019s a process in place\u2026that everybody agrees to and understands.\u201d<\/p>\n Peters replied by touting that some large employer organizations, such as the Illinois Manufacturing Association, have expressed neutral positions on the bill. The state Department of Labor also holds a neutral position. \u201cThis is a very negotiated bill,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A few on the panel, including Sen. Donald P. DeWitte (R), said the state\u2019s cannabis legalization law had explicitly granted employers the ability to preserve zero-tolerance drug policies.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat authority does the state of Illinois have to dictate to a private business that they can no longer maintain\u00a0zero-tolerance policy for anyone having cannabis in their system?\u201d DeWitte asked.<\/p>\n Questions and testimony on HB 4116 continues. #SenExec<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 IL Senate Democrats (@ILSenDems) March 30, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Peters responded there was a need to balance that provision with separate privacy rights the legalization law also established.\u00a0\u201cWhat we\u2019re saying is that employers can\u2019t dictate what employees do on their private time,\u201d the sponsor said.<\/p>\n DeWitte continued to question Peters, asking how the bill\u2019s various provisions would interact if, for example, a worker were involved in an on-site accident but tested positive only for trace amounts of THC\u2014lower than the state\u2019s per se limit for cannabis-impaired driving. It was at that point that Peters stopped the debate, and without further discussion the panel moved on to the next bill on the agenda.<\/p>\n Drug testing for THC has become tricker for employers as more jurisdictions have legalized cannabis for adults, especially because many tests can indicate only whether someone has recently used cannabis\u2014not whether they\u2019re currently experiencing the drug\u2019s affects. Illinois, which legalized cannabis in 2019 through an act of the legislature, number of states have recently sought to address the problem.<\/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\u00a0drug testing certain workers for marijuana<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Washington, D.C., a Council committee unanimously approved a bill this month 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 Last week, however, a Colorado House committee\u00a0rejected a bill<\/a> that would have provided protections for workers in that state who use marijuana off the job. As introduced, the measure also would have allowed medical cannabis patients to use marijuana at work, although later amendments scaled back those protections.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, as Missouri lawmakers work to advance marijuana legalization in the state, the St. Louis County Council approved a bill this month to ban pre-employment and random drug testing<\/a> for cannabis for most county workers.<\/p>\n The Kansas City, Missouri Council also voted last year to enact a similar policy drug testing policy change<\/a>\u00a0for cannabis.<\/p>\n A nationwide labor report recently found that drug testing rates at U.S. workplaces have fallen considerably over the past quarter-century<\/a>, as states began ending marijuana prohibition. The government-collected data also offered a glance at what types of industries are screening workers for drugs the most and the least.<\/p>\n At the federal level, House appropriations legislation and attached reports\u00a0passed by the House last year<\/a>\u00a0directed federal government agencies to\u00a0reconsider policies that fire employees for using cannabis<\/a>\u00a0in compliance with state law. But that provision was not included in the omnibus package approved by the House on Wednesday.<\/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\u00a0resulting drug testing mandates<\/a>\u00a0that 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\u00a0protecting people in legal marijuana states<\/a>\u00a0from being penalized due to federal drug testing policies.<\/p>\n Federal Marijuana Legalization Bill Amendments Get Committee Review Ahead Of Floor Vote<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Martin Alonso<\/a><\/p>\n The post Illinois Senate Committee Abruptly Halts Debate On Bill To Protect Workers Who Test Positive For Cannabis<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
An Illinois Senate committee\u00a0began debate this week on a bill that would\u00a0protect workers from being fired for using cannabis on their free time.\u00a0With some exceptions, the measure\u00a0would prohibit employers from firing workers or discriminating against job applicants merely for testing positive for marijuana use. The House of Representatives already passedContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":53949,"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\/53948"}],"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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53950,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53948\/revisions\/53950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMarijuana Moment is already tracking more than 1,000 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills<\/a> in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters<\/a> pledging at least $25\/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don\u2019t miss any developments.<\/strong>
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/MM_Bill_Tracker_V5_blank-173.jpg\"){kind=tracking}
<\/a>
\nLearn more about our marijuana bill tracker<\/a> and become a supporter on Patreon<\/a> to get access.
\n\u2014<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
\n
\nRead More: Illinois Senate Committee Abruptly Halts Debate On Bill To Protect Workers Who Test Positive For Cannabis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"