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The email from my new job was not the welcome I was anticipating. I would "be required to complete a drug test within 72 hours," it said. "Please be sure to check your email for instructions." It was August 2018, and I had just accepted an offer as a faculty member to develop a research program on, of all things, cannabis's therapeutic effects on chronic pain. But in addition to being a cannabis researcher, I have fibromyalgia, and I had been using legal medical cannabis for nearly 10 years to help manage my symptoms.
Cannabis byproducts can be detected in urine for weeks, but I did what I could: I immediately stopped taking my medicine, exercised frequently, drank water constantly. My test kept getting delayed, which was lucky in one sense: By the time I took it, I was clear. But I had gone two months without my only useful pain medication.
And for what? All the test showed was that I had avoided cannabis and other drugs during the preceding weeks. I could have partied for the rest of the year, and no one would have been the wiser.
Perhaps you've experienced this pointless exercise. A staggering number of people have. Despite the fact that 38 states have legalized medical cannabis, many employers continue to require their new hires to submit to a drug test.
Often these employers, including universities like mine, say the law leaves them no choice. The Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 and the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act Amendment of 1989 do, indeed, require federal employees involved in certain professions, like law enforcement and national security, to be tested. That may be changing: Last month The New York Times reported that over the past five years, the military has given thousands of recruits a second chance to pass. In any case, these statutes do not mandate drug testing for people not employed by the federal government, even — despite many claims to the contrary — those who receive federal funding, such as academic researchers.
Cannabis can, of course, get you high, which affects attention, memory and learning. So just as most employees aren't allowed to drink alcohol on the job, it makes sense that most employers don't want people using cannabis while they're working. The problem is that job-site drug screening captures usage only in the recent past. It does not assess current impairment or predict whether an employee may be a future safety risk.
