In June, Amazon announced that it would no longer include marijuana in it’s drug testing program for positions not regulated by the Department of Transportation (DOT). Marijuana use would be treated the same as alcohol use. Amazon joins a growing list of companies that have shifted their workplace drug policies. However, most of those companies […]
Two new “breathalyzer” tests being developed by the University of Pittsburgh and Hound Labs, respectively, are set to hit the market in 2020 and are being marketed as the solution that employers have been waiting for. The devices, similar to breathalyzers used to measure breath alcohol content, use advanced technology to detect and measure recent […]
With a majority of states — 33 states plus Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam — in the country enacting laws permitting the use of marijuana for medical use, and a small, but growing number of states (11 to be exact) allowing recreational use of marijuana, it’s almost impossible to ignore the elephant in the […]
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a Wisconsin inpatient residential health facility violated federal law by rescinding a job offer because the applicant tested positive for a prescribed medication during a pre-employment drug screen. Rogers Behavioral Health (RBH) offered a job applicant the position of intake specialist. During a pre-employment physical, which included […]
After nearly two years of allowing recreational marijuana use, Nevada has enacted a law restricting most employers from using a marijuana drug test to reject potential employees. The move comes as a growing number of Nevada businesses move away from cannabis screening as more job applicants use the recreational drug. Since the legalization of marijuana, […]
Recently one of your employees has been acting suspiciously; they have been extremely irritable, taking more breaks than usual, and seem to have an endless sniffle and runny nose. Based on what you have seen on TV, you believe that the employee may be using cocaine. Is this enough to send this employee for drug […]
Thoran Towler, Chief Executive Officer of Nevada Association of Employers, was recently interviewed on how legalization of recreational marijuana has affected employers in Nevada. The potential legalization of recreational marijuana in Minnesota is forcing businesses across the state to consider whether to still hire job candidates who fail a drug test. Legislation to legalize recreational […]
Former Nevada Controller, Ron Knecht, and former Deputy Controller, James Smack, recently authored an opinion piece for the Northern Nevada Business View calling for an end to the federal prohibition of cannabis. Seeing some of Nevada’s top-level Republican leadership alter course on this issue may be indicative of a larger shift on the horizon at […]
Post-Accident Testing Does Not Violate OSHA Final Rule As you may recall, in early 2016 OSHA published a final rule that, among other things, amended 29 C.F.R. § 1904.35 to prohibit employers from retaliating against employees for reporting work-related injuries or illnesses. In the preamble to the final rule, OSHA discussed how the final rule could apply […]
In February of this year, Thoran Towler, our CEO at Nevada Association of Employers, wrote an article for the Reno Gazette Journal that explored recreational cannabis use in relation to Nevada’s waning labor supply. In the article, Towler implicitly raises the question, “Should Nevada employers consider revising their drug policies to accommodate the hiring of […]
