Five years after California legalized recreational cannabis, a new proposed bill would prohibit most jobs from using urine or hair drug tests to deny an applicant a job.
Assembly Bill 1256, introduced by Assemblymember Bill Quirk, is intended to prevent employers from using past evidence of cannabis use, including hair and urine drug tests, from discriminating against employees as well as deny employment or terminate employment. Under current California law, employers are allowed to require “suspicionless” drug tests as a term of employment.
The new bill would also protect employees and allow those who have been discriminated against in violation of the proposed bill to take legal action. Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML and a sponsor of the bill, said the language of the bill is still being adjusted and is possibly a “two-year bill” meaning it might not pass this year.
“Urine tests are like going through employees’ trash every week and looking around for empty beer cans or liquor bottles. And if you find some, the person must’ve been drunk on the job,” Gieringer said. “You’re allowed to do anything else legal off the job. You can drink, smoke and fire guns, and stuff like that, as long as it’s off the job, so we thought that cannabis should be treated the same way; and of course, drug testing detects use off the job.”
Some employers would be exempt from the proposed bill, including those in construction or building trades, employers who are mandated by federal law to test for THC and those who “would lose a monetary or licensing-related benefit” for failing to conduct drug tests.California would join Nevada in not barring potential applicants from jobs based on pre-employment drug tests. Last year, a bill in Nevada took effect that removed THC screening from pre-employment hiring processes. The Nevada bill only affects the hiring process, meaning employers can still drug test hired employees as they see fit.
