Oregon lawmakers will consider making it illegal for businesses to fire employees who flunk drug tests for using marijuana off the clock, reviving a workers' rights campaign that failed in the statehouse last year.

A proposed bill, Legislative Concept 2152, would also rejigger state law to protect job seekers who use substances like pot that are legal here.

The proposal reflects a debate over whether Oregon workers should be forced to abstain from marijuana use — which is allowed under state law but remains federally illegal — for fear of getting fired or losing an employment offer.

Senate Bill 301, which represented a previous attempt to loosen employment restrictions, failed in 2017. That bill generally dealt with discrimination against medical marijuana cardholders who tested positive for the cannabis.

New bill is redrafted form of SB 301

The latest proposal has come before the Senate Interim Committee on Judiciary, chaired by Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene. Prozanski said Monday that the concept was a redrafted form of SB 301.

"We'll definitely have some discussions" on the proposal, he said.

The proposed bill wouldn't allow employees to use pot if their collective bargaining agreements prohibit partaking while off-duty, or if there is a "bona fide occupational qualification" associated with their job. It also does not permit working under the influence.

SB 301 included exceptions for labor agreements, workers doing their jobs while impaired and contracts between employers and federal officials that require employers to have " a drug-free workplace" to receive federal dollars.

Leland Berger, a Portland attorney and cannabis activist who's been involved in the campaign, said he got a call this week from a man who got turned down for a job because he was a medical marijuana patient.

Berger calls it "cannabigotry."

It's "straight up discrimination of consumers," he said. "Certainly the hardest hit are the medical patients."

"There are a lot of questions employers have when it comes to establishing workplace rules, particularly when it comes to cannabis," said Beau Whitney, a senior economist with Washington, D.C.-based cannabis think tank New Frontier Data.

Court rulings on the matter have largely favored employers, he said. "The employers have the say in terms of establishing expectation when it comes to their workers," Whitney said.

"Of the number of executives we have interviewed on the topic of labor, their main concern is impairment while working," he said.

Whitney said he has been increasingly asked about the topic, most recently at a conference in Kentucky.

"My response to legislators at the conference was that given the robust economy, there is a general shortage of labor," Whitney said. "Employers are starting to adjust pre-employment drug screens, particularly in legal states, so that they have access to more workers. So the market is starting to adjust on its own."

Email jbach@statesmanjournal.com, call (503) 399-6714 or follow on Twitter @jonathanmbach.

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