Joe Reilly on Drug Testing in America

Safety First: The Case for Continued Marijuana Screening

• Joe Reilly

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Drug testing for marijuana has become increasingly complex and challenging for employers as states pass conflicting laws while the drug remains federally illegal. We discuss the patchwork of marijuana laws across the U.S. and provide guidance for employers trying to maintain workplace safety while staying legally compliant.

• DOT-regulated employers must maintain marijuana testing regardless of state laws
• CBD products should be used with caution as they may contain THC and cause positive tests
• Many states have restrictive laws limiting when employers can test for marijuana
• New York, Nevada, California, Washington and Minnesota have some of the strictest marijuana testing restrictions
• Oral fluid testing provides an alternative solution in some restrictive states as it detects recent use
• Georgia, Florida, Idaho, Kansas and Texas maintain employer-friendly marijuana testing environments
• Written drug testing policies are essential and must be state-specific
• Comprehensive drug-free workplace programs should include policies, supervisor training, employee education, and support resources
• Dropping marijuana from testing panels creates significant liability risks for employers

Contact Workplace Screening Intelligence or National Drug Screening to ensure your drug testing program remains compliant with your state's evolving marijuana laws.


Joe Reilly:

and welcome. This is another podcast episode of Joe Riley on drug testing in America and with your sponsor, workplace screening intelligence. Today, we're going to be talking about marijuana in the workplace and marijuana drug testing, with your special guests Phil Dub Dubois, president and CEO of Workplace Screening Intelligence, and now your host, joe Riley.

Philip J. Dubois:

Hello, thank you, jesse, for that introduction and welcome back to the Joe Riley on Drug Testing in America podcast. I am thrilled to be here with our second episode. We started out a couple of weeks ago with Drug Testing in America and a huge overview. We talked about the history of drug testing and brought it up into 2025. And we mentioned some hot topics that we would cover on future episodes, and one of those hot topics is marijuana. It's probably the hottest topic in drug testing for employers in the United States, and I have my good friend and colleague, phil Dubois, who's our resident expert on workplace drug testing and marijuana. So welcome, phil.

Jesse Hall:

Thank you, Joe so welcome Phil.

Philip J. Dubois:

Thank you, joe, and I am excited to talk about marijuana.

Philip J. Dubois:

I've got some questions for Phil and Phil's got some questions for me.

Philip J. Dubois:

Just wanted to start out with a preface For those businesses, those employers, that are regulated by the United States Department of Transportation, marijuana is a prohibited substance and it doesn't matter if you're in a state where it has recreational marijuana or medical marijuana.

Philip J. Dubois:

Marijuana is prohibited and if you're a DOT covered employee and you test positive for marijuana, you have a violation and both the DOT, myself and Phil will also advise to use CBD products at your own risk, because CBD products are supposed to have a very low level of THC but nobody knows whether they do or don't because they're not regulated by anybody and nobody really tests them except for us. And when we test CBD products we find higher levels of THC and that could make you test positive CBD products. We find higher levels of THC and that could make you test positive. But for today we're really talking about non-DOT drug and alcohol testing, where marijuana is an issue, because almost every state in the United States has different laws about marijuana and it's great to have Phil Dubois here with Workplace Screening Intelligence as our sponsor. Phil, you want to just briefly tell us a little bit about Workplace Screening Intelligence.

Jesse Hall:

Yeah, certainly. Thank you, Joe. Workplace Screening Intelligence is a nationwide third party administrator who our niche is. We make screening easy for employers. So whether you need a drug test, a physical, a titer test to prove that you're immune to TB or any other type of screen, we make it easy and we help our customers stay compliant with DOT and non-DOT and state regs and rules.

Philip J. Dubois:

Awesome. Thank you, phil. A little bit about drug testing. We talked in the last episode about a five-panel drug test which includes marijuana as well as amphetamines, methamphetamines, cocaine, pcp and opioids, and a lot of companies are eliminating marijuana from their testing and that's a big part of this discussion today. Both Phil and I have a good friend, chuck Marting. He has a podcast called Clearing the Haze and he talks often about exploring the movement away from marijuana testing, which Phil and I will talk about how we feel that that's kind of dangerous, but we'll get into that. Okay, I've got some questions for Phil to kind of get the conversation going about marijuana in the workplace and marijuana drug testing, and both Phil and I have been very active in drug and alcohol testing organizations going back 30 years. So Phil, tell us about the Marijuana Committee and when was the first Marijuana Committee formed and what's that committee all about with regards to marijuana in the workplace?

Jesse Hall:

So I believe it was close to 2012 when the first marijuana committee was brought together and you know there was concerns that the ability for employers to continue to be able to drug test was eroding, and that was back in 2012. Fast forward to today it's on hyperspeed the challenges for employers. But anyways, the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association a group that both you were a chairman and I was a chairman as well we formed that group myself and Joe McGuire, who is the first lady of marijuana and all things marijuana Awesome and we formed it to make a better way for employers to continue to have the right to test for drugs in the workplace.

Philip J. Dubois:

And so I think it was really about protecting that employer's right to maintain a drug-free workplace Correct. And when you mentioned the term eroding, it's like these state laws keep popping up that perhaps make it more difficult and perhaps protecting the employee and not the employer, correct? Yeah, so we both currently belong to kind of the new national organization called the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association, or NDESA. And does NDESA have a marijuana committee?

Jesse Hall:

Well, ndesa does not have a marijuana committee, but it's pretty well done in the Government Affairs Committee. I happen to enjoy the opportunity to be the chairman of the Government Affairs Committee and we do a lot with marijuana in the workplace.

Philip J. Dubois:

Okay, excellent. So it's kind of a subset of the Government Affairs Committee, yeah, and we also have a committee for the employer's rights to a drug-free workplace, but it works on different stuff than just marijuana.

Jesse Hall:

Okay, awesome. And what is Endesa's stand on marijuana? Well, endesa doesn't really have a stance on legalization of marijuana. Okay, it's, whether it should be legalized or not legalized. It's not what we're advocating for. We advocate for the employer's rights for a drug-free workplace, as well as a community's rights to have a safe and drug-free community. And you might ask Phil, what does that really mean? That for DOT safety carve-outs, so that school bus drivers, airplane pilots, truck drivers aren't driving down the road being intoxicated from smoking marijuana or any other drug.

Philip J. Dubois:

Yeah, interesting. I've had the conversation actually a couple times in the last couple of days traveling around the country doing training and consulting with folks, and of course, the marijuana discussion often comes up and when I'm in states that have legal marijuana recreationally legal marijuana and sometimes the debate is well, it's harmless, it's, you know, alcohol is worse and things like that. And I'm like, I'm like in DASA, I don't really have a stance either, but I don't want to get on an airplane and find out that the pilot smoked a joint on the way to work.

Jesse Hall:

That's correct, yeah.

Philip J. Dubois:

So we got to have employer's rights for marijuana testing. A big topic last year was you know marijuana is a Schedule I drug. You know it has no medical benefits according to the federal government. What's the latest update on marijuana rescheduling to? Perhaps which the DEA tried to do last year is to bring it to a Schedule 3?

Jesse Hall:

Correct.

Jesse Hall:

So as it stands today.

Jesse Hall:

You know, the Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services told the DEA that you need to reschedule it and there was some questions around that and people in the industry, including Ndesa and many other opponents of the rescheduling, spoke up and at the end of the day, they believed that there was questions that needed to be answered.

Jesse Hall:

So there was a heron set for beginning in late December 2024. Beginning in late December 2024. And NDAISA was actually scheduled to testify I believe it was on February 5th which Joe McGuire was going to testify but then one of the opponents of the rescheduling asked to have it held so that they could apply to have it held off at a later time. So the bottom line is, at this point in time it's still on hold and don't know if it's going to move forward or not. We have a new administration and a new person heading the DEA, a new person heading the Department of Health and Human Services and a new person heading the Department of Justice. So we're at a standstill at this point in time and waiting for updates.

Philip J. Dubois:

As it happens, With all those new people, it sounds to me like there's going to be a pause, perhaps a lengthy pause.

Jesse Hall:

I think that's the best way to say it, joe, a lengthy pause is probably going to have it. The new DEA leader said the other day it's important, he's going to look at it and he will let everyone know as soon as he's had time to consider all the facts.

Philip J. Dubois:

Yeah, and I think it's interesting that when they were talking about rescheduling and it had a little bit of momentum there, right oh?

Jesse Hall:

absolutely.

Philip J. Dubois:

In the later part of 2024, and. I don't know if it was specifically in DASA or whomever brought to the attention of the Secretary of the Department of Transportation that if this went through, it would have been likely that DOT-covered employees would not be subject to marijuana testing.

Jesse Hall:

That is absolutely correct and we actually had a couple congressmen ask questions of the Secretary and they did ask the Secretary if he thought that it was going to be and he said yes, we could continue to test our employees and the congressman said I don't think that's really the truth. They knew that. You know, with marijuana being rescheduled to three, it's no longer going to be illegal, so therefore they they would be able to test. But nonetheless, the Secretary Buttigieg said it doesn't matter if it is or it isn't, we're not going to let pilots and school bus drivers and truckers and everyone else be on the job intoxicated. So he was prepared to make sure that all DOT employees continue to be tested.

Philip J. Dubois:

So that sounds to me like if it got rescheduled, that there'd have to be some type of safety carve-out in the law to protect the DOT testing. Is that right and that?

Jesse Hall:

is correct, the safety carve-out is what will allow DOT to continue to test going forward, and we need to have that passed by Congress, and so that's what we're doing at Indesa currently.

Philip J. Dubois:

Okay, and what is Indesa's stance on the rescheduling?

Jesse Hall:

Well, we obviously think it should stay Schedule 1 because of the reasons that we all know. Marijuana is not, as you said, cbd oil not being manufactured in the proper methods and proper manners, so is marijuana. Marijuana today is so much more stronger than what it was when we were kids and so much stronger than what our little brothers and little sisters had many years ago. And the same thing with the manufacturing FDA or no one else is overlooking the marijuana, how it's done, everything else. So you might have some CBD containers that have very high concentration gummies and some very low concentration gummies, because they really don't have a set way of manufacturing that normally the FDA pharmaceuticals would.

Philip J. Dubois:

Okay, and so again, enda is the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association. That's kind of like our National Trade Association, and Phil mentioned Joe McGuire a couple of times. She's the executive director of that association and, as he mentioned, she's the first lady of marijuana. She's got a long history of working with marijuana, understanding marijuana. She's talked to Congress, she's talked to many, many, many organizations. So, phil, what is Indace's stance on an employer's right to a drug-free workplace?

Jesse Hall:

Well, as we said, we fight and we advocate for the employer's rights to a drug-free workplace. So you may ask how do we advocate? How do we get our points across place? So you may ask, how do we advocate, how do we get our points across?

Jesse Hall:

Well, every time a marijuana legalization bill comes across and which, believe me, it happens all the time we write letters to the sponsors, we write letters to the transportation and infrastructure committees and everything else, letting them know about the safety carve-out and how important it is that we have this safety carve out. And you know, further, we advocate for an employer to not only just for the DOT employers, but for the non-DOT employers, for their safety sensitive employees to be able to continue to be tested for marijuana and the other drugs as well. And so we have the letter writing campaigns that we do continuously. And then we also have an advocacy day. Okay, in our advocacy day, we go to Washington DC once a year and we meet with many congressmen, senators, and we advocate for both the employer's rights to a drug-free workplace, the safety carve-out, as well as keeping our community safe.

Philip J. Dubois:

Excellent, excellent.

Jesse Hall:

So if marijuana, you know, instantly became legal by the federal government, a safety carve-out would protect at least the DOT employer's rights to a drug-free workplace, that is correct If a safety carve-out was already instituted, or if a safety carve-out was instituted before the new effective date, then we would continue testing for marijuana in the DOT panel. If not, it would be at a later date. So there could be a small amount of time where a marijuana testing would not be done with the DOT panel.

Philip J. Dubois:

Okay, so, phil, what are your thoughts on employers that might drop marijuana from their testing panel and just continue to test for other illegal drugs?

Jesse Hall:

Well, I've had a few of them and they ask me the question what are your thoughts? And I tell them I go, well, no matter what you do, you're at some kind of a risk. So let's talk about the risk for people that keep marijuana in their panel. So there's no risk for DOT employers whatsoever because it's the rule of the land and it does not matter. You're protected by the DOT rules.

Jesse Hall:

But for non-DOT, let's say a state like Florida has a medical marijuana and you have an employee that isn't safety sensitive Maybe it's a secretary that's sitting at a desk and doesn't interact with customers, doesn't have any kind of safety sensitive.

Jesse Hall:

That could be a little bit of risk by not allowing her to smoke marijuana if she had a medical marijuana card. Okay. On the other flip side of that, let's just say you're a car dealership and I've had a couple of car dealerships that have dropped marijuana and they want to know why they shouldn't do it. And I said well, you know, let's just say that you drop marijuana and then you hire somebody and he's either delivering cars or he's cleaning cars, whatever the case may be, and he runs over some kid in the parking lot and he was intoxicated with marijuana and if you had tested him, you know three weeks ago when he was hired, you would have a defense. Now you have no defense. You actually put yourself in a defensive position to be sued because you removed marijuana testing. So I think for any employer that has safety, sensitive employees, I think it's absolutely is risky at best if they're going to continue to not test for marijuana.

Philip J. Dubois:

Okay, yeah, and we're going to cover some. A lot of it has to do with the state law and what the state law says. And we're going to get into that as we move like into the part two of this podcast here focusing on marijuana in the workplace and marijuana drug testing, and where we can do it, where should we do it, where shouldn't we do it? And so I know you said earlier, phil, you had some questions for me.

Jesse Hall:

Sure Joe, I know that you're definitely an expert on state laws and many people in the industry use your National Drug Screening website for all of the stuff there. It's the first place I go to when I got a question about estate law, which is nice. So does a medical marijuana cardholder get away with using marijuana when working at an employer who has a drug-free workplace?

Philip J. Dubois:

Great question. So a medical marijuana cardholder is someone in a state that has authorized the use of medical marijuana and the state issues a card that authorizes that person to purchase and use marijuana. Now a lot of people say, well, they have a prescription for marijuana. Well, no, it's not a prescription. You don't go to CVS and get your marijuana. You get a card from the state.

Philip J. Dubois:

Okay, so if the company has a drug-free workplace program which they should and they should have a written policy and you're going to hear this a couple times over and over again in this podcast that written policy should address marijuana and should address medical marijuana if that's something that's available in that state and should address any possible accommodation for someone who is a medical marijuana cardholder. But in no way can someone smoke or be impaired by marijuana while they're working. There are no state laws that would allow that. There are some state laws and we'll cover a few of them as we go through where there are some states that kind of want to protect the employee. What they do at home is their own business and they want it kind of treated like alcohol and there are some states that want to be like zero tolerance If you're positive for marijuana. It's a violation of the company policy. So it really boils down to what does the policy say? And if they don't have a policy, they better get one.

Jesse Hall:

I agree on that one. So tell me what states have the most restrictive laws for employers who want to do marijuana testing?

Philip J. Dubois:

So that's a great question and we've got some states that are pretty restrictive. I'll kind of cover these Okay, real quick. The ones I'm going to cover and not all inclusive okay are New York, nevada, california, washington and Minnesota, and in New York it's probably the most restrictive because you can't test for marijuana applicants or employees, current employees. There are some exceptions One would be DOT, the other would be if an employer would lose a federal contract or federal funding, and the last one would be if there is reasonable suspicion that the employee might be impaired by marijuana while at work. So New York's pretty restrictive.

Jesse Hall:

I agree.

Philip J. Dubois:

And that's certainly a place where, if you drop marijuana from your panel, that's probably a good idea.

Jesse Hall:

Yeah, and you know there's an interesting thing about New York marijuana. Yes, you can't test for pre-employment in New York, like you said, but the person gets hired three weeks later, they have a worker's comp case and then the person gets tested for marijuana. They lose their job and they may lose the ability to get their worker's comp. So which is, you know, a challenge when the employee is confused because when they were hired they were smoking marijuana. It's three weeks later and now you tell me I can't work here anymore. It's not really fair.

Philip J. Dubois:

Yeah, and that goes back to what does the policy say? And in your example, the policy would say that if you have an accident, we're going to do a drug test because now there's some reasonable suspicion. We want to find out if the use of a drug marijuana, cocaine, whatever find out if the use of a drug marijuana, cocaine, whatever possibly caused that accident. And there is a presumption that if they used a drug, that that caused the accident and workers' comp is going to attempt to deny the claim.

Jesse Hall:

Correct.

Philip J. Dubois:

Yeah. So the next state I want to talk about is Nevada. Okay, and this is for pre-employment applicant prospective employees only. Okay, Testing for marijuana is prohibited.

Jesse Hall:

Okay.

Philip J. Dubois:

There are some exceptions DOT covered employees, other employees that are subject to federal regulations, as well as firefighters, law enforcement, emt, truckers and others who are required to drive as part of their job Any type of employee and this is a little broad, so sometimes these laws are gray and subject to some interpretation. The law says any type which could cause harm to others when performing duties under the influence of marijuana. Also, in Nevada they got a cute little thing that you get hired. They couldn't test you for marijuana when they hired you and if they tested you within 30 days of initial employment, you can ask for a new test and rebut that test that was done within 30 days. Now this would be at your own expense. Now this would be at your own expense. But again, it's an opportunity for an employee in Nevada to say, well, you got me, but I'm going to test again and you don't have me anymore because I stopped smoking for a couple days. So California, that's a big one, phil.

Jesse Hall:

Oh, absolutely.

Philip J. Dubois:

So a lot of talk about California over the last couple of years. California's kind of interesting. California over the last couple of years, california's kind of interesting. It's kind of like the state government really lets employees do what they want to do when they're not working, including smoking as much pot as they want to smoke.

Philip J. Dubois:

So California said that we can't test applicants or employees for marijuana with testing methodologies that detect the non-psychoactive cannabis metabolite. So when we do a urine test or we do a hair test we're detecting a metabolite that's non-psychoactive anymore because it's already gone through your body, it's not making you high anymore and that type of testing is prohibited in California for both employees and applicants. So that limits California employers if they want to continue to test for marijuana. It kind of limits it to oral fluid testing, which is testing the parent drug, THC, not the metabolite, as well as very recent detection of use of the drug, in this case marijuana. Maybe they smoked on their way to work. So California is interesting with that. It kind of eliminates urine testing, hair testing. There are some exceptions. Okay, A little bit vague. It says employees in the construction and building industries that are hired for position or positions that require a federal background check. So construction and trades. I have some clients that say, well, we do construction, so I guess we can still test for marijuana. Is that how you understand?

Jesse Hall:

it. That's how I understand it and I've got to tell you it seems like California is concerned about everybody's rights to smoke marijuana, except for the construction workers, because it's so dangerous.

Philip J. Dubois:

And those are the guys that don't really do a lot of it Right.

Philip J. Dubois:

Okay, the state of Washington passed a similar law, but it only affected applicants. Okay, so in Washington we have something very similar. You can't use a methodology that's detecting a non-psychoactive metabolite for pre employment, so you could do oral fluid, again parent drug, and detecting very recent use. And there are some exceptions in that Washington rule, which include first responders, fire departments, airline, aerospace, safety-sensitive positions again where impairment while working might cause substantial risk of death. So if the company develops a policy that says, well, someone's performing a function, that if they were impaired they might kill somebody, I guess that could be an exemption. So, very similar to California, but only affecting applicants, not affecting current employees. Minnesota A little bit confusing. In Minnesota, this went into effect in September of 2023. Prohibits cannabis testing for current employees as part of a routine physical examination or on an arbitrary or capricious basis. What does that mean? Any idea, phil?

Jesse Hall:

I'm not very sure I might want to call my lawyer on that one.

Philip J. Dubois:

Yeah, so I mean you could read in that. That's random right, correct.

Philip J. Dubois:

Okay, arbitrary and capricious, it's random, okay, but it does say that employers can test when there's reasonable suspicion. There are a list of exceptions also in Minnesota safety-sensitive positions, peace officer positions, firefighters, people working on federal contracts, positions where there's a federal grant or things like that, positions where there's a federal grant or things like that. So in all of these states okay, that we're talking about, that are restrictive in marijuana testing. You got to have a policy, you got to follow the policy and you got to make sure the policy was written with that state law in mind. And we can write policies for companies okay, phil's company does, my companies do, but we have guidance from attorneys on and we also recommend that if you're in those states that have restrictive laws on marijuana testing, have your attorney review your policy. Hopefully that answers that big question, phil.

Jesse Hall:

That was a big question. That was a great answer too as well. So I know you already mentioned some of it, but what are some of the solutions for marijuana testing for those that are in those restrictive states that you mentioned?

Philip J. Dubois:

Yeah, so I mentioned one solution could be in a couple of those restrictive states California and Washington would be going over to oral fluid. Again, we're not testing the non-psychoactive metabolite, we're testing the parent drug and we have recent use of detection. Another solution would be to beef up and make sure that as a company you have robust supervisor training on reasonable suspicion signs and symptoms that someone might be impaired, because you can test for marijuana when there's reasonable suspicion. But do the supervisors know what that is and are they comfortable doing it and giving them that knowledge to know what it is? And are they comfortable doing it and giving them that knowledge to know what it is? And that comfort level requires what's called supervisor training. Now, phil, I know your company, wsi. You are for supervisor training, correct?

Jesse Hall:

Yes, we do.

Philip J. Dubois:

Okay, Another solution would be to drop marijuana from the testing panel, but there's some risk associated there and again, as you mentioned the example, you drop marijuana and then the delivery guy goes out to deliver some furniture and runs into a daycare center. Not going to be pretty.

Jesse Hall:

Lots of zeros on that check.

Philip J. Dubois:

Yeah, so there are some solutions, but check with the attorney and also have a robust drug-free workplace policy. It should be written, it should be distributed to the employees, it should be discussed with the employees so that they understand it.

Jesse Hall:

Yeah, and I do think that discussing it with the employees is probably the most important step. Obviously, having the policy is important, but if you have a policy that the employees haven't seen or they don't know about it, that's not going to be sound, you know. If the employee says that, well, I see it's in the policy, but they never gave me that policy, they never talked about that policy. So that's an important part to let them know why you're doing it.

Philip J. Dubois:

Yeah, and when we talk about a drug-free workplace, you know it's an overall program. It's not just drug testing. The policy is part of it place you know, it's an overall program. It's not just drug testing. The policy is part of it.

Philip J. Dubois:

Correct. The supervisor training we just mentioned is part of it. Another part of it that often gets overlooked is what we call employee education, and that's what you just talked about educating the employee on what the policy says Correct and also educating them on the harmful effects of the use of drugs in the workplace or the consumption of alcohol in the workplace. So a comprehensive drug-free workplace policy or program includes a policy, supervisor training, employee education, access to employee assistance programs and then also drug testing. It's not just about drug testing.

Jesse Hall:

So here's a question that I think that every employer wish that they're in one of these states, but are there any states where zero tolerance for marijuana testing is legal and sound?

Philip J. Dubois:

So there are okay, and I'm going to mention five of them. Okay, but there's more okay. So again, you have to kind of, you know, engage an attorney and engage a drug testing expert like yourself, phil, or like myself, to find out in your state what do the laws say? Okay, now Georgia outlaws cannabis and employers may uphold zero tolerance drug testing policies, including cannabis testing. So we got Georgia. We got Florida, just below Georgia. So we're good here in the southeast. So far, the laws in Florida allow applicant and employee testing for marijuana and even though Florida has a medical marijuana law, florida law does not explicitly require an employer to accommodate medical marijuana use, off-duty use. They can or they can't. It should be in their policy.

Philip J. Dubois:

Third one is Idaho. It's cold up there. Employers in Idaho are generally allowed to drug test employees for marijuana and can take adverse action based on positive results. This has become. Marijuana remains illegal in Idaho, both for medical and recreational purposes. But in that Idaho definition I want to mention something which says that employer can take adverse action based on positive results. Some of the state laws. It's not whether you test for marijuana that's important, it's about what, or can you take any adverse action. So there are some states where you can test for marijuana. They're positive, but you can't take any adverse action. So there are some states where you can test for marijuana, they're positive, but you can't take any adverse action. So you know they're positive, but you can't do anything about it.

Jesse Hall:

Yeah, which kind of puts you in a bad position, because now you know you have an employee who may be intoxicated or may be under the influence, and here you are.

Philip J. Dubois:

Yeah, exactly, some of these state laws are creating conundrums.

Jesse Hall:

Yes, I agree.

Philip J. Dubois:

Another one is Kansas. Okay, and Kansas is the home of several of our major drug testing laboratories that we deal with Quest Diagnostics, as well as Clinical Reference Laboratories, crl. Marijuana remains illegal in Kansas, both medical and recreational. There's no specific law regulating or restricting private employers from implementing drug testing policies, so we'll get to go in Texas, texas. I was just in Texas. The last couple of days I was in Lubbock, texas, the home of Texas Tech. The girls softball team took a big win in the World Series of Women's Softball. The girls' softball team took a big win in the World Series of Women's Softball. Everybody in town was watching that game every TV I went through.

Philip J. Dubois:

But drug testing in Texas drug testing is a friendly state in Texas, okay, marijuana is illegal. They do have a little bit of a medical marijuana law that deals with some serious medical issues that people may have, but for the most part marijuana is illegal in Texas. You can test for marijuana and accommodations are not required and you know there's a lot of work going on in Texas with the oil and gas industry and a lot of bad things can happen. So it's good that marijuana and drugs in general in Texas are friendly drug testing state. So we don't see that those explosions that we've seen on the Landman series.

Jesse Hall:

Oh yeah absolutely so.

Philip J. Dubois:

those are the five states I wanted to talk about just briefly that are drug testing friendly.

Jesse Hall:

So, Joe, let me ask you one last question. What is the most important thing that an employer can do to deal with the whole marijuana in the workplace situation?

Philip J. Dubois:

Okay, so just a side note, there's actually some cities, too, where marijuana testing is kind of restrictive.

Jesse Hall:

Oh yeah, that's true.

Philip J. Dubois:

The city of Philadelphia prohibits pre-employment drug testing for marijuana. The city of New York had passed a law prohibiting pre-employment testing for marijuana, but then the state passed a law that said you can't do any drug testing for marijuana. And San Francisco is really weird it generally prohibits all drug testing. They don't want anybody in San Francisco to be drug tested, they just want everybody to walk around and be hired. There are some exemptions for federal and type of jobs.

Philip J. Dubois:

But your question about what's the most important thing to do and we've said this a couple times, but it's good to repeat it I also often, when I'm doing training, people say, well, you said that already. I said well, yeah, and I'm going to say it again, because repetitive training gets you to understand and remember what I'm telling you. Okay, and so employers need to have written drug testing policies. They need to be compliant with the specific state law where they operate. If they operate in multiple states, they need to address marijuana drug testing in those multiple states. So, for example, I had a client not too long ago. They operated in 21 different states, so we wrote a policy based on the home state where their corporate office is, and then we wrote 20 addendums for operating in those additional 20 states. So the policy is important, educating the employees are important, supervisor training is very, very important. So any insights from that, phil, that you learned.

Jesse Hall:

Well, yeah, absolutely. I think employers today are certainly in a different spot than when me and you entered this business over 30 years ago. So I think that every employer, if they're not dealing with an expert when it comes to marijuana, they definitely should get with a company like National Drug Screening, Workplace Screening, Intelligence and tons of other people out there that provide the service and the advice that you need to keep you out of trouble when it comes to drug testing.

Philip J. Dubois:

Absolutely. And just on the lighter side of things, because you mentioned over the last 30 years which we've kind of been colleagues and friends in over 30 years I had a company called Florida Drug Screening and I've done a lot of consulting and training. We've worked together, now have national drug screening. But you've got a background. Tell us a little bit about your background and we had a lot of fun back in the early days.

Jesse Hall:

Back in the early days we had lots of fun. So about 33 years ago I graduated from college. I just wanted a job. It was during the first Bush recession, and so jobs were hard to come by. And I'll tell you, I worked in the restaurant industry during college five years. It was even difficult to get a job as a restaurant manager back then. So I saw an advertisement for a sales rep for a lab. You had to have seven years of experience, which of course I didn't because I was just a college graduate, but they hired me nonetheless because they were impressed with my spiel.

Jesse Hall:

That I gave them, and I have been in that business ever since. I worked for them. I worked for American Medical Labs for seven years, vp of sales. I also worked at Quest Diagnostics for another eight years, and I had a great opportunity to work with an equity company. We took a third-party administrator as well as a lab, and we took it and grew it by 10 times and got a nice little payout at the end, and so that's how I was able to start Workplace Screening Intelligence.

Philip J. Dubois:

Awesome, that's an awesome story, and I remember the good old days when you were in sales with some of those big companies and the expense account was pretty liberal yes, they were.

Jesse Hall:

And you were a good customer, Joe, so we like to take care of you.

Philip J. Dubois:

And we didn't partake in any illicit drugs, but we did like to have a little wine and dinner which we're probably going to do tonight also.

Jesse Hall:

Yes, we will.

Philip J. Dubois:

Yeah, so, phil, do you have any final questions or discussion?

Jesse Hall:

No, I just think that every employer this is a very important decision that they need to make about marijuana and no matter what they do, depending on where they live, you know, like, for example, you said in Florida I think every employer is safe. You know, if they decide they don't want to, they don't have to worry about it. Dot employers at this point in time are safe. They don't need to worry about it. But if you're an employer that's in a state that has some restrictive laws or some very employee-friendly laws, you've got to really do some thinking and no matter what your decision, you're at risk. So I think it's important that you take the time to think about it and if you're not 100% certain, you know, reach out to a lawyer, reach out to an expert like Joe myself, and we can get you taken care of Excellent.

Philip J. Dubois:

And I want to also thank Jesse Hall, our producer here in Space Coast Podcast. And, jesse, did you learn anything today? You got any questions?

Joe Reilly:

I actually learned quite a bit. Thank you, Joe. And I'm just wondering, with some of these states that prohibit testing, what happens when somebody does get involved in a workplace accident and they do test positive after the fact or maybe it's not even a drug screen from the employer, but just from the ER and it turns out that they were under the influence. Do they still get workman comp? I mean, are they still?

Jesse Hall:

Well, it depends upon the state.

Jesse Hall:

So I mean, the good news is, joe, correct me if you know differently, but I don't think there's a state out there that doesn't allow you to test when you have reasonable suspicion, okay, but the real important thing is that you have articulatable reasonable suspicion, that you have two supervisors that see that this person is acting differently, strange and unusually different than what he is Not. He's laughing a little bit. You know he was cutting jokes. You know that's not enough. It needs to be documented as well. So are there any states, joe, where you're not allowed to do reasonable suspicion testing?

Philip J. Dubois:

No, in an accident. Typically in a lot of states an accident would be considered reasonable suspicion, or at least is there some reasonable suspicion, because in some cases there has to be some reasonable suspicion. But just adding on a little bit, jesse mentioned something that is quite important. So the employer's not doing drug testing and maybe they're not even doing drug testing for marijuana in the post-accident situation because they just said we're not going to test for marijuana because the laws are restrictive here. Okay.

Philip J. Dubois:

But you know, there's an accident and people die, people get hurt, whatever it might be, and there's going to be an investigation. And maybe that driver ended up in the hospital and they're going to take some blood and they're going to find an investigation. And maybe that driver ended up in the hospital and they're going to take some blood and they're going to find out if he's under the influence of anything before they start giving him any meds, because they didn't want any cross-reactivity or anything that go on. So if they find him to be positive for marijuana, okay, there's going to be a big big. If somebody died or got seriously hurt, there's going to be a big big. If somebody died or got seriously hurt, there's going to be a big investigation and there's going to be lawyers involved and there's probably going to be lawsuits involved, sure, and they're probably going to name the employer in the lawsuit. Now, whether the employer wins or loses, they still lose because they've got to hire an attorney and they've got to defend it and it's going to cost a lot of money and a lot of time.

Philip J. Dubois:

So, if you can test for marijuana, my opinion is maybe you should, and be very careful about your policy and what you do with accidents and what you do with reasonable suspicion. Perfect, thank you guys. Yeah, so again, I wanted to thank Workplace Screening Intelligence, which is our financial sponsor for today's episode, and Phil Dubois, the CEO and President of Workplace Screening Intelligence, with a great mission to empower employers by providing efficient, accurate and reliable screening services. Thank you, phil, we appreciate your support.

Jesse Hall:

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me, Jim.

Philip J. Dubois:

All righty and I wanted to just mention we're rolling these out like every other week the podcast Joe Riley on Drug Testing in America. We did a kind of an overview in the first episode two weeks ago and today we focused on marijuana, which is a big hot topic, and we're going to focus in the next episode on, specifically on DOT employers, employers regulated by the DOT, which might be trucking companies, bus companies, ferries on our waterways, tugboats, railroads, Amtrak, Conrail, mass transit systems, the New York City subway, county local buses, oil and gas pipeline operations, PISMA. We're going to focus on what those employers need to know about DOT required drug testing. My guest will be Tom Fulmer. He is Vice President of Business Development for National Drug Screening and he's going to drill me with questions about what employers need to know about DOT, drug and alcohol testing. So, Jesse, I think I'm supposed to say something like please subscribe, like tell your friends, ring the bell. Is that how it goes All?

Joe Reilly:

the above. Yeah, thanks for tuning in. Make sure you do subscribe comment below. We do read your comments and we will reply to those questions in future episodes. And yeah, ring that bell so you get notified every time a new podcast comes out Awesome, thank you, of course, until next time. Thanks so much and be safe out there, guys. Thank you.