… Drug Free Workplace and Marijuana
What happens in Colorado does not always stay in Colorado! Some employers may get fed up with all this medical and recreational marijuana stuff and say enough is enough. It is quite possible that employees under the influence are not more creative and more productive. Perhaps marijuana use is a safety issue in the workplace. Courts continue to uphold a company’s right to maintain a drug-free workplace including drug testing for marijuana.
Where recreational marijuana is legal, drug-free workplace policies need to provide clear guidelines concerning the use of marijuana. There still may be challenges.
For one company in Colorado, this company finally, had enough workers using marijuana for recreational purposes and coming in “high”.
The result was the manufacture of poor products output and low productivity. This was coupled with a poor work attitude. The mood was “it’s good enough”. That attitude, apparently, did not work for the owner of the business called “Little Spider Creations”.
The company has been in business in Denver for 24 years making scary type creations and had 47 employees.
The owner, Marc Brawner said that it was a difficult decision to move the business and his family to another state being a native Coloradan. He did not see anything changing and that pot use was the last straw.
Marc stated “Marijuana got into our industry. Half of the sculptors will come in high. As soon as we’d catch it, they’d be let go. We went through 25 sculptors. Only five of [our sculptors] either were quality or would show up unimpaired.”
For this company owner he had had enough! The question now is how many more companies will leave Colorado or even Washington when faced with employees who consistently come in “high”?
How will this affect small businesses much less large businesses? Fortunately, the transportation industry and personnel who operate the planes, trains, trucks and vessels have a sense of responsibility and will not engage in dangerous behavior that will jeopardize public safety or property. It is largely because of deterrent random drug testing that the accident rate is low along with the illegal use of controlled substances.
The photo is an example of what this company manufactured.
