Workplaces get ready for legal marijuana rules

Policies in state’s recreational use law take effect July 1

Workplace-related provisions of Connecticut’s marijuana law take effect this summer, introducing job-related rules a year after adult recreational marijuana was made legal in the state.

Employers must have an updated drug-free workplace policy, including rules governing pre-employment drug testing and accommodations for employees with medical marijuana cards. It also allows workers to sue employers for alleged violations.

Gov. Ned Lamont and the General Assembly legalized recreational marijuana in 2021, and employer obligation provisions are set to take effect July 1.

Businesses are getting advice on how to comply with the new law. In a posting on the website of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, John M. Letizia, managing partner of the New Haven law firm Letizia, Ambrose & Falls, said the law limits an employer’s ability to penalize an employee or job applicant based solely on a positive drug test.

Current law does not require employers to have a stated policy to deny employment to a prospective worker who tests positive for marijuana, said Letizia, who represents employers. After July 1, however, employers must have a policy in place to cite a positive drug test as a reason not to hire a worker.

“For the first time ever there’s a law protecting applicants who test positive for pot in their system,” he said. “It’s almost a recreational smoker’s bill of rights.”

“I wouldn’t characterize it that way,” said Rep. Steven Stafstrom, D-bridgeport and House chairman of the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee that drafted the law.

Business groups, including defense contractors that account for an outsized share of Connecticut’s labor force,

were consulted as the legislation was written, Stafstrom said. The law has the “most robust protections for employers” and does not preempt a business from imposing a drug-free workplace, Stafstrom said.

“This is now a legal drug like alcohol or tobacco or a similar substance,” he said. “It has an ability to impair, and we make it clear that it should be treated in a similar vein.”

Employers in several industries, including construction and manufacturing, are exempt. Also beyond the law are police and firefighters, jobs funded by a federal grant, those requiring federal safety and health certification, drivers required by law to test for drugs and jobs that could adversely affect the health and safety of employees and the public, as determined by the employer.

State Rep. Holly Cheeseman, an East Lyme Republican

who has opposed legalized marijuana in Connecticut, said it introduces safety problems at numerous workplaces, citing fast food restaurants that use deep fryers. And workplace dangers add to hazards on the highway and human health brought on by marijuana use, she said.

“Group after group after group, the AAA, chiefs of police, pediatrics say this is a bad idea,” she said. “All these jobs you can’t do if you’re stoned.”

Cheeseman also said employers will be challenged to learn the new workplace rules in the law she called a “300-page abomination.”

“It’s hard enough to run a business these days,” she said.

Much of the attention in the legislature was on social equity provisions of legalized marijuana intended to account for the government’s war on drugs that targeted Black and other underrepresented communities. Stafstrom said the law is needed to coincide with the legal sale of marijuana in Connecticut and to recognize a changed landscape brought about by legalized marijuana in neighboring states such as Massachusetts.

The Responsible and Equitable Regulation of Adult-use Cannabis Act took effect last year. Since July 1, 2021, adults 21 or older could purchase and possess up to 1.5 ounces of marijuana, or up to 5 ounces locked at home or in a vehicle’s glove box or trunk.

Applicants are competing for state licenses to sell, transport and grow marijuana as the state stands up Connecticut’s newest industry.

In the meantime, the Connecticut Business & Industry Association advises businesses to “create, review, update and disseminate” drug and alcohol policies. And it urges employers to emphasize to workers that the legalization of marijuana “does not mean that they can show up to work high.”