Colorado ruled in favor of legalizing cannabis, yet workers still need to remain cautious about using it. Businesses retain the right to fire employees who use marijuana, even outside of work hours. It’s up to each individual business to decide whether or not casual use of marijuana outside of work is permitted. Companies can legally perform drug tests at any given moment to determine whether or not their employees are using the drug.
The subject gained a lot of interest after a quadriplegic man from Colorado was fired from his job at Dish Network. He tested positive for the use of marijuana, which is against the company’s policies. Many have protested and debated this issue saying that the state has legalized it and he was clearly using it for medicinal purposes. Nonetheless, the state of Colorado still allows companies the freedom to choose whether or not their employees can use cannabis.
Cannabis Businesses are Still High Risk
Although the state has decriminalized the drug, businesses in the cannabis industry still remain high risk businesses. These businesses still need to search for marijuana business funding from specialized investors in order to get their business off the ground. Banks don’t like putting their trust into marijuana businesses due to the legal issues on a federal level.
As high risk businesses, the marijuana industry will continue struggling with these types of issues. If marijuana was similar to beer on a legal standing point, this would never be an issue. No company has the right to refuse employees to drink a cold beer when they go home after a long day at work, but it definitely is the case with marijuana.
So what’s to come from this? Most likely, companies will continue having the right to request drugs tests for many years to come. However, this may eventually come to a haul once the federal government decriminalizes marijuana and places it on a similar level to alcohol. If this were to ever happen, then employees would most likely be permitted to smoke marijuana without any risks of losing their jobs.
