With the legalization of recreational cannabis, the New Brunswick Federation of Labour is concerned employers may try to overstep their boundaries.
President Patrick Colford tells us his biggest concern is employers wanting to randomly drug test their employees for the use of marijuana. He says random drug tests have already been proven to be a violation of human rights.
“Hopefully we don’t have to go down that road again. But if we do, I mean, we will definitely be ready for those challenges.”
Colford expects there will be a few more cases dealing with marijuana use once legalization happens, but he believes everything will calm down over time, “I think we’ll see a lot of it because it’s something new, but I think if we boil it down to the very basics of what it really is, I think a lot of that will just kind of go away over time.”
Brenda Comeau, of legal firm Pink Larkin, recently held a presentation to the Federations of Labour from across the country, focusing on the implications and concerns for employees, employers, and unions once cannabis is legalized.
Comeau told the group the biggest controversy she sees is when it comes to cannabis testing, there is no way to prove actual impairment.
“With alcohol testing we can, because alcohol will leave your body within eight hours and we can see from the test that you’re impaired and should not be driving or operating heavy equipment.”
She notes it’s a much different case for cannabis, “The reason being they have a really hard time isolating [when you last consumed cannabis]. The best they can do right now is the saliva test which goes back seventy-two hours.” Essentially, she says you can consume marijuana, and days later it will still be in your system, even though you are not impaired.
Recreational cannabis is expected to be legalized in Canada on October 17th, 2018.
