CANNABIS AND CRUISE SHIPS
Policies being drawn up for lighting up on board.
Marine Atlantic, like many large corporations, is preparing for and struggling to get policies in place prior to the legalization of cannabis expected this summer.
The ferry service operates four vessels on two routes between North Sydney and Newfoundland. Last year, it carried 328,000 passengers and 95,000 commercial vehicles.
There are “concerns for both crew and passengers,” said Marine Atlantic’s David Frew, who is the vice-president of corporate strategy and human resources.
“That’s important to us given the nature of the service that we provide and where we provide it,” Frew told a Port Days business audience at the Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion on the Sydney waterfront on Thursday.
“The North Atlantic is nowhere you want to be unsafe. Safety is the priority for us so we do have concerns about the
legalization of marijuana and what that might mean for passengers and customers.”
He said he doesn’t believe the federal government will meet its target of legalization by July 1, instead Frew estimated laws making recreational cannabis legal would likely happen “closer to Christmas.”
“But nevertheless, we’ve started preparing procedures, policies and practices that we will put in place when the day comes that it is implemented,” he said.
The corporation is expected to release those plans publicly within the “coming weeks,” Frew added.
A lack of a standard threshold to determine how much pot is too much isn’t available to employers.
Each company is left to determine how to quantify when an employee is considered stoned, and many organizations have inadequate policies to address the complex issue, according to Nadine Wentzell, a Halifaxbased consultant who has spent the past 25 years building industry-specific workplace alcohol and drug policies and programs.
In an interview with the Post last month, Wentzell said many employers are “very nervous” about cannabis use right now
because there had not been human resources policies already in place.
And it’s not as simple as an employer randomly testing employees for drug use in occupations where safety is always in the foremost of managers minds.
National rules for random drug and alcohol testing were established following a 2013 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Employers must be able to prove there’s pervasive abuse of a substance in order to legally enforce a drug testing program.