“If the state is saying someone can use marijuana for responsible adult use then why should we care what someone does when they’re off work?” said Steven W. Hawkins, the executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group.

In fact, marijuana is legal in some form in 33 states and the District of Columbia. The district and 10 states allow recreational use. (Illinois will join the group next year; New York and New Jersey appear to be headed in that direction.) Surveys in 2017 and this year showed that millions of Americans used cannabis with some regularity.

Some employers have already changed their policies on pre-employment drug screening, and not just to address the dissonance in punishing someone for using a legal substance. With unemployment so low, companies are finding that testing for marijuana adds an unnecessary barrier in hiring top talent.

“With an economy that’s humming along, employers are desperate,” said Jim Reidy, a lawyer with the firm Sheehan Phinney in Manchester, N.H., who regularly advises large corporations on drug-testing policies. “If they have these rigid drug and alcohol policies and drug testing at the pre-employment stage, where marijuana was still on one of the panels, they found they were otherwise losing out on qualified candidates.”