Hirers more mellow about pot use

WASHINGTON — FPI Management, a property company in California, wants to hire dozens of people. Factories from New Hampshire to Michigan need workers. Hotels in Las Vegas are desperate to fill jobs.

Those employers and many others are quietly taking what once would have been a radical step: They’re dropping marijuana from the drug tests they require of prospective employees. Marijuana testing — a fixture at large American employers for at least 30 years — excludes too many potential workers, experts say, at a time when filling jobs is more challenging than it has been in nearly two decades.

“It has come out of nowhere,” said Michael Clarkson, head of the drugtesting practice at Ogletree Deakins, a law firm. “I have heard from lots of clients, things like, ‘I can’t staff the third shift and test for marijuana.’”

Although the shift away from marijuana testing is still in its early stages, it appears likely to accelerate. More states are legalizing cannabis for recreational use; Michigan could become the 10th state to do so in November. Missouri appears on track to become the 30th state to allow the medical use of marijuana. Ohio’s medical-marijuana law is slated to go into effect in September.

Medical-marijuana users in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island have won lawsuits in the past year against companies that rescinded job offers or fired workers because of positive tests for cannabis.