CBS News Moneywatch brings it up: Should employers keep testing workers for pot?
According to executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which favors eliminating marijuana preemployment screening, companies are finding it increasingly difficult to find qualified applicants who don’t smoke weed at a time when unemployment is at a 17-year low.
“While it is good policy to ban drugs and alcohol in the workplace, what workers do after hours — as long as it does not impair the company’s operations or productivity, or otherwise do harm — should not have any bearing on how workers are viewed by their employers,” Andrew Challenger, a vice president at the firm, said in a press release.
It’s really time to end this practice that has been more about profits for drug-testing companies than workplace safety. Finally, companies are starting to realize that their most productive workers are those who feel valued and respected, and may not be those who mindlessly turn their entire lives over to the Corporation.
A Salute to Challenger, Gray & Christmas out of respect for their stance re; This Orwellian Oligarchic Foray into Misrule.
Welcome back!
My favorite job interview included smoking a joint outside the office on the street with the team. Some drug testing is appropriate 😀
Yep, welcome back, Pete! While you were away, somebody jazzed up all the avatars.
And may I add my ‘voice’ to the chorus of “Welcome back!”
WRT employers re-thinking their stances on drug testing, this is just more evidence of changing demographics affecting economic and political policies. A point predicted from the Couch, long ago.
Businesses are being forced to face facts regarding the changing nature of their workforce…and that workforce’s potential to engage in political activism. Political activism that is slowly eroding the degree of social control businesses enjoyed over their employees for decades, thanks to ‘drug testing’ and the implied threat of loss of employment for engaging in a ‘non-corporately-approved’ lifestyle…or thinking.
For that is precisely what that political activism has led to; the slow dismantling of cannabis prohibition laws, State-by-State, has also been a challenge to the (traditional) corporate power structure, and its ability to lord it over their employees.
(Any wonder why Kevvie’s donors are almost all corporations of one sort or another? Drug testing companies act like unseen Mafia enforcers for corporations, enforcers who don’t engage in physical but fiscal violence.)
As was pointed out here long ago, the self-serving machinery of prohibition was hiding in the tall grass of an electorate that supported cannabis prohibition with their votes. With their passing from attrition, the tall grass is being mowed down by time, to reveal that self-serving machinery in all its corrupt glory.
The machinery has nothing to hide behind now, and its attempts to propagandize the next generation of taxpayers for its continuance (i.e. DARE) have failed, to the point of relying almost completely on the courts to try to negate votes on popular plebiscites favoring re-legalization (the OK/NE lawsuit to overturn CO’s vote on re-legalizing cannabis)…which have been rightfully rejected. (And such attempts have shown that their sworn allegiance to preserve democratic institutions was only for when it suited and favored them.)
As more States re-legalize, more corporations will have to bow to the pressure from the electorate, and by derivation, bow to their own (responsible cannabis using) employees, and end all testing save for accident-related reasons. When that happens, a large part of the war will be over.
Welcome back Pete.
“Why You Should Stop Testing Employees for Marijuana Use”
An advocacy group claims corporate drug tests are a form of discrimination against adults using a state-legal substance during off hours.
https://tinyurl.com/yacvu9vs
Employers have no right to impinge their testing that thereby interferes with an employees right to privacy in his off time.
Court Rules Field Sobriety Tests Unreliable for Marijuana Detection
https://twitter.com/DendeCannabist/status/912232109405650944
Segregation of Stoners via Pisstasters. Doesn’t cover housing purification rules based on Feds prohibition, in legal states. Especially HUD or Section 8. No whiz quiz, just smell and the word of the property management. Most are elderly or disabled and have been on a 5 year waiting list to get into an apartment. Some property management companies control 20,000 units, and the people living in them. A way to order lifestyles. So even if you work for a sane employer, they can still legally discriminate at home if you rent. Then the roads are also another illogical place to warrant tests if suspicious due to bumper stickers, not impaired driving.
Who knew retirement just meant having less free time than before? Being it’s your time, Pete, use it how you like. That means staying busy. We were going to head to Q-town this Spring to visit my Dad, was hoping to get a visit with you in as well, but alas, I have been “well” only ten days so far this year, having got a near lethal dose of the current H3 Flu virus…still battling walking pneumonia and the good Dr. Coskie has surgery in just a couple of weeks to remove two large non cancerous masses they found by looking under things for another problem. Minor surgery, luckily, but still involves two days in hospital recovery time. So the MidWest trip goes on hold until next year. Enjoy yourself some for us here at home buried under pizza boxes and crumbled Oreos.
darkcycle, sorry to hear you’re having a rough winter. Rooting for your recovery and return to good health.
Aye, I’m going to do fine. The same cannot be said for the occasional creature unlucky enough to have provoked my ire in this time of viral unhappiness.
Automotive pioneer Henry Ford paid his employees top dollar, and for that dollar he expected them to submit to inspections of their homes and lifestyles by company agents to ensure employees were living up to the expectations of the company. It was a forced Americana.
The idea that a corporation or its stakeholders should have a patriarchal control over the lives of employees is the first rule of political corporatism—Mussolini style fascism. It was no coincidence that Ford, coupled with a beleaguered grade-school level education, made political donations to a similar imbecile rising in power in Germany.
Trotsky was correct when he said fascism was organized misery. The idea that anyone owes their soul to the company store in the same sense as some religious authority has never really caught on with workers. Cannabis and drug testing has been an authoritarian attempt to bring back a feudal relationship between the employer and employees, vassal and serfs. The choice of which recreational drug to allow has been completely arbitrary unless it conveys a political, racial, or religious advantage to a particular group or groups.
Some municipalities and counties in California, such as the one I live in, have recognized the troubling political aspects of drug testing and refuse to allow corporate or company employees to be randomly drug tested. Testing can be legally conducted if there is reason to suspect impairment due to accidents and so forth, but otherwise the laws remove the Sword of Damocles from above an employee’s head.
To demonstrate how desperate the forces of prohibition have become, and to illustrate the change in tactics away from a methodology that has failed them (legislation and referenda) to relying on Federal force majeure, one need only look at the recent meeting of Attorney General Jeff Sessions with the most prominent members of civilian prohib groups.
So frightened of public reaction to their (inherently, typically dishonest) efforts, they sought to meet in secret, but were betrayed by Session’s own carelessness in failing to prevent the preface for the meeting’s agenda from being scoped by alert reporters.
Jeff Sessions Just Met With These Anti-Marijuana Activists
The intent of the meeting was obvious: to use the cachet of Federal power to attempt nullification of the popular votes of those States whose electorates have chosen to re-legalize cannabis.
The prohibs have given up on trying to convince the public that their arguments are sound; the majority of the public knows better, and State by State are voting accordingly. The Feds, despite the force available to them, simply do not have enough resources to project that force…not to mention their aversion to risking a Constitutional crisis in the process.
Were the situation represented by a battlefield map, the prohibs would be a pocket of resistance completely surrounded on all sides by an army that is moving inexorably onward. There’s no relief efforts forthcoming, and with all the latest scandals regarding possible Russian interference in the electoral process, the prohibs are far down the list of important matters requiring Federal attention. A fact which may even penetrate the current AG’s seemingly neutronium-hard thick skull.
Once I get published with my first work, regardless of how much money I make or any fear of getting pissed tested, I’m so going back to Cannabis. Because I work 14-17 hours a day with no days off, cannabis is a breath of fresh air–like a strong breeze on a hot day. Smoking two hours before bed is like having six hours dedicated to just mindless entertainment . . . a good way to reset oneself since all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I cannot fathom how anyone could ever write about a teenage girl growing into her twenties and a made up rock band without the occasional puff from the pipe. It’s one thing to write about the Velvet Underground, The Doors, or Nirvana without weed, but how does one write about a made up band the embodies Opera, Jimi Hendrix, Patsy Cline, Dr. Dre, Aretha Franklin, Metalica, Korn, Genesis, Marshello and Nirvana in the same songs/album.
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Hold on to your hats, no liquids in your mouth and be sitting down before you read this, we’ve got a brand new ally:
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linky
It’s getting very weird.
Good weird but now I have to change all their uniforms.
The Charles Koch Foundation is donating millions of dollars to colleges to support studies on marijuana and criminal justice reform.
https://marijuanamoment.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b103be7b5d7ad4abd40bfebc&id=50ed3e561d&e=8bff18e77b
The Washington Post May Finally Stop Testing Its Employees for Weed
http://gawker.com/the-washington-post-may-finally-stop-testing-its-employ-1781403932
There Is No Way in Which the War on Drugs Is Not a Failure
http://gawker.com/there-is-no-way-in-which-the-war-on-drugs-is-not-a-fail-1760545328
Photos: Pennsylvania’s first medical marijuana dispensaries now open
https://www.thecannabist.co/2018/02/15/pennsylvania-medical-marijuana-dispensaries-open/99108/
The CEO of Scotts Miracle-Gro said that Republican opposition to legalizing marijuana is “total bullshit.”
https://t.co/jkNgpcySnG
Help us grow more Girl Scout Weed troops in your area!
https://tinyurl.com/NewWeedOrder
The prohibs are always engaged in their pince-nez’ed Nervous Nellie cum Crazy Cat Lady finger-wagging about the ‘dangers’ of cannabis ‘normalization’. They stop just short of foaming at the mouth, speaking in tongues and rolling on the floor about it.
Nothing is more indicative of normality than Girl Scout Cookies. Linking this to legal cannabis is absolute genius.
Let’s see the prohibs try to take on the Girl Scouts. It would only further demonstrate how anachronistic and seriously out of touch they are with their fellow citizens.
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They sell Girl Scout Cookies inside the dispensaries too. But I doubt that the GSA gets any royalties. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this story.
This is about the Girl Scouts of Colorado, they updated their policy for 2018, last Friday.
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I was referring to the first time when a Girl Scout made nationwide news after selling a boatload of GS cookies in close proximity to a state authorized cannabis vendor. That’s what inspired the creation of the Girl Scout Cookies strain. GSA is the entity which owns the trademarks for the organization. Sorry for the ambiguous wording in my post above.
(At a local 12-step meeting place, somewhere in ‘Murikah, people are seated on identical, uncomfortable fold-up chairs. On the wall is a sign bearing the likeness of a fresh-faced, wholesome-looking Girl Scout holding out a box of cookies, with a big international “No!” sign in front of her.)
Said in a tremulous, choked voice: “Hello, I’m Nemo, and I’m a Samoas addict.” Breaks down and sobs piteously.
The whole group responds with “Welcome, Nemo!”
Drug testing is the new racket operating within US health care. The urine testing businesses are booming thanks to the opioid industry’s marketing schemes and the subsequent ODs the marketing push created. It’s so serious a woman can’t become pregnant without being suspected of having a drug habit. Inquisitorial testing is mandated. Case in point: a woman pregnant with twins was billed $17,850 for urine tests to test for multiple drugs because her health insurance company, Blue Shaft of Texas, refuses to cover the cost:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/19/health/opioid-drug-test-bill-partner/index.html
Munchies, meet Thin Mints: Girl Scouts will now allow cookie sales outside Colorado pot shops
https://twitter.com/DendeCannabist/status/965996343926771713
Medical marijuana in the workplace: Where do things stand? https://tinyurl.com/yde7q83g
“This is a contributed piece by Dustin Carlton, an attorney at Bass, Berry & Sims PLC where he represents employers in a variety of traditional labor and employment matters.”
… “Courts in California, Oregon and Colorado — some of the forerunners in the movement to legalize marijuana — have previously held that employers do not have a duty to accommodate medical marijuana use, even under state law. That no longer appears to be the prevailing view, particularly as newer statutes are drafted that explicitly contemplate the need to accommodate medicinal marijuana use.”
“As such, it is important for employers to carefully review the anti-discrimination laws in the jurisdictions in which they conduct business.”
A lesson about cannabis to a group of teens by the York Regional Police Service (Ontario) goes tits up.
https://tinyurl.com/LessonGoesTitsUp
It was actually even worse than just ‘doobies make boobies’:
https://tinyurl.com/TitsUpContinued
David Cameron and Boris Johnson both have substantial moobs. Could it have been all that weed they smoked at the Bullingdon Club?
‘Doobies Make Boobies’: Police Apologize After Officer Says Marijuana Makes Men Grow Breasts https://t.co/y2nZjF03He
Research funded by the NIDA and NIH declares medicinal marijuana innocent of charges it leads to greater recreational consumption of the herb by teenagers.
Separately, however, a panel of members on the editorial board of the journal Addiction say marijuana may be correlated with fewer opioid deaths over time, but it doesn’t prove marijuana is responsible for any reduction in fatalities. The editors are vague as to what they believe constitutes proof:
The title of the press release is misleading. Nothing is actually “debunked†in the case of cannabis correlations involving reduced opioid deaths. The editorial board is demanding further research, but the “more plausible reasons for the reduction in opioid deaths†are not mentioned.
More recreational use on the one hand, less deaths on the other. Seems like a fair trade off to me. Better to be stoned than dead.
A genetic biomarker has been discovered for opioid related disorders:
The discovery of a new biomarker is a double-edged sword. While important as a clue that can lead to new medical treatments for opioid disorders, the discovery makes it possible to genetically test someone for a possible opioid dependence. Those with the gene variant are now a potential target for prohibitionists wanting to test people and persecute the culprits who possess the wrong gene.
Seeking opioid crisis answers at summit, Pete Sessions waged war against marijuana
https://tinyurl.com/y9y3gqze
This man makes me want say bad things using bad words like drug war whore monger, nazi, police state, racist, ignorant… Trying unsuccessfully to stay away from 4 letters … steam coming out my ears!
Another Sessions speaking out of bigotry hatred and ignorance.
This one patrols the narrow halls in Washington stopping everyone but his buddies from passing.
The Keck School of Medicine of USC strongly repudiates Congressman Pete Sessions bombast that marijuana is the gateway to addiction. Big Pharma’s allegedly safer opioid compounds are the gateway to addiction, as well as heroin use and hepatitis C:
It is perhaps no surprise that Pete Session’s largest campaign donation came from “Health Professionals‖$201,100 in 2015-2016. Pete Sessions is scapegoating marijuana to protect Big Pharma’s products from being labeled a gateway to acute hepatitis C.
Source: https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00005681&cycle=2016
Weed, smack, weed, smack… the only link is prohibition…
They promised us Chinese opium dens, where white men would be lured by oriental women into having sex.
I know, and conjugal relations with entertainers too….
now, where’s my tamping iron?
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Pete Sessions has a business degree which he parlayed into a career in marketing at Southwestern Bell. In other words, he has zero knowledge regarding addiction or cannabis or much of anything else.
I mean, how can he expect to be taken seriously when he cobbles together word salads such as this;
“Avoiding death is important, hear me say that, but learning what the facts and factors are, who is a candidate for this, how do we teach them, what does DNA matter to a 14-year-old, where do they start? If it’s marijuana, we ought to stand up and be brave in the medical community to say this political direction is not right.”
[“…what does DNA matter to a 14-year-old?” What the hell kind of question is that!?]
-or this;
“The drive for addiction with some of our children is insatiable.”
[I had no idea there was such a thing as a “drive for addiction”. Oh, I know why, it’s because the suggestion is ludicrous. Go home Pete, you’re drunk (or maybe just plain old fashioned stupid)…]
More on Pete Sessions:
“Sessions’ personal influence on legislation is particularly evident when it comes to cannabis law. For at least the last two years, Sessions has enacted a vendetta against cannabis reform, blocking every piece of weed-related legislation from going to a vote in the House. To put it plainly, Congress can’t vote on cannabis anymore because of this man.”
https://hightimes.com/news/politics/congress-cant-vote-cannabis-anymore-man/
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Did you know that High Times is part of a publicly traded company? Ticker STNY. Absolutely no friggin’ liquidity in the name, trades by appointment only. E.g. on Friday a total of 480 shares changed hands.
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“The Rules Committee assignment has allowed me to use my experience and personal values to influence every piece of legislation before it reaches the House floor,†his website says. [emphasis added]
We’ve seen this attitude in action before. Lamar Smith (R-TX) as chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary let it be known in 2011 that he would not allow a bill to end Federal prohibition of cannabis to be voted on.
Similarly a few years ago, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said she was not afraid to vote against her constituents wishes if her views conflicted with theirs.
Fortunately, Lamar Smith is retiring. Unfortunately, Pete Sessions is fairly young and could remain in his obstructionist position for many years to come (although, ultimately, states will continue to change their laws rendering his barricade meaningless).
Pre-teens don’t get high from using cannabis
http://potfacts.ca/pre-teens-dont-get-high-from-using-cannabis/
Because CB1 receptors develop only gradually during childhood, children below the age of 13 generally don’t feel much of the psychoactive effects of cannabis – even while using large doses! If they feel any euphoria at all, it’s strikingly mild. There is a large body of evidence testifying to this.
Pete Sessions should read this before making a remark like:
“The drive for addiction with some of our children is insatiable.â€
Lie and Odor Party of Sessions.
Texas Veterans for Medical Marijuana
Call Upon Congressman Pete Sessions
Lone Star Leaf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVIV-ArWgo0
Yes, Pete Sessions,
Your Problem Is That You Haven’t Smoked Pot
Russ Belville
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPp2KOLfohg
Stand Up to Sessions Press Conference in Fort Worth, Texas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQPOoHJcz3I
U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions holds Town Hall in Richardson
https://youtu.be/1patLNB6tm4
The Republican from Dallas told the raucous crowd that they’re frustrated because
“you don’t listen.”
Pete Sessions One Of The Long Line Of Racists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hz6B5hi5QE
https://www.voc-nederland.org/wp-content/uloads//Anslinger_Reefer_darkies.jpg
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I’m flabbergasted! Apparently there aren’t any public toilets in the Las Vegas airport!!
‘Amnesty Boxes’ At Airport Allows Travelers To Ditch Their Weed Before A Flight
Surveillance-happy authoritarian “Democratic” California senator Dianne Feinstein loses California Democratic Party endorsement
https://boingboing.net/2018/02/25/dino-difi.html
California Democratic Party declines to endorse Dianne Feinstein for re-election
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/25/california-democratic-party-declines-to-endorse-dianne-feinstein-in-re-election-bid/
Sens. Grassley, Feinstein, Klobuchar, Kennedy & Whitehouse wrote Google & other tech companies
https://twitter.com/tomangell/status/967749520791625728
Just this week, Feinstein sent letters to Google and other tech companies asking them to prevent users from even being able to search for drugs. Imagine how many more overdoses there would be if people couldn’t access basic dose & contraindication info.
A Drug Warmongers Toll on Americans
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/364
Diane Feinstein needs to “Just Say No†to money from big pharma and alcohol. The following campaign money she has received throughout her Congressional career:
Beer, Wine & Liquor $405,462
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $381,050
Agribusiness $1,193,686
Lawyers & Lobbyists $3,819,136
Feinstein says Leahy’s and Rohrabacher-Farr Amendments go too far
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/endingcannabisprohibition/a-drug-warmongers-toll-on-americans-t364.html#p2934
in tying the federal government’s hands
Knowledge Control
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n775/a05.html
Donald Trump dreams and talks about his desire to execute all bigtime drug dealers:
https://www.axios.com/exclusive-trump-privately-talks-up-executing-all-big-drug-dealers-1519595170-402cc386-8729-4684-a7ef-a5bf31876afa.html
Tsar Trump is unlikely to carry out his maniacal plan due to legal technicalities — good news for Trump given his vacuous lack of foresight. Retribution against Trump or members of his family would be at least one of the anticipated consequences of his becoming the Grand Executioner.
Another one of those wanna be dictator types to walk hand in hand with Duterte. Donald shows his true colors – cruelty with a touch of unusual punishment for flavor.
Yippee!
“California Democrats shocked Senator Dianne Feinstein by not endorsing her for re-election at their state convention Sunday.”
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/california-democrats-stun-dianne-feinstein-state-convention-shocker
‘Seismic’, they say. Well, yes. As in a tectonic shift. As in what happens when older, less well informed voters are replaced in the electorate with newer, better informed ones.
Simple attrition, nothing surprising about it, and wholly predictable and predicted…right here. Once more, as usual, The Couch is light-years ahead in prognostication. And the cannabis issue was no small part of the reason for DiFi going bye-bye…AS WE SAID IT WOULD
The new electorate wanted cannabis legal again, and she chose to act like her hearing aid batteries crapped out and pretended not to hear. Her political backside now bears the boot print of her constituents who made their displeasure with her clear…and said boot print is a warning to the other ‘party animals’ to pay attention, lest their party shudder down the coal chute of irrelevancy into History’s dust-bin.
Maybe the “shock†will jumpstart Feinstein’s heartbeat.
When will they start a senate investigation into her husband’s potentially fraudulent acquisition of federal buildings?
“On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband’s real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/21/senate-husbands-firm-cashes-in-on-crisis/
Cronos Group
A Major U.s. Stock Exchange is Listing a Weed Company For the First Time Ever
https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2018/02/26/major-u-s-stock-exchange-listing-weed-company-first-time-ever
A major Canadian licensed weed producer has obtained approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to begin trading on the NASDAQ — it will be the first marijuana company to be listed on a U.S. stock exchange.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have discovered the brain’s pain switch. The goal is to derive alternatives to common opioid compounds used in chronic pain relief:
And more evidence that cannabis does not lead to psychosis with the discovery of 50 gene segments linked to the development of schizophrenia:
Did you guys see this? Our very own Duterte:
“Trump Is Telling People He Wants to Start Executing Drug Dealers”
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-telling-people-he-wants-start-executing-drug-dealers
Also Servetus, re the brain’s pain switch: this is something that S&M aficanados have known about for hundreds of years. Fool the body (it’s pretty dumb) into thinking it is in major shock and it will produce a massive release of endorphins, enabling tolerance and/or enjoyment of further pain and enhanced sexual pleasure. What’s not to like?
An Ohio State University study offers details for what makes magic mushrooms magic: