News » California Chamber Claims Legalization Would Allow Smoking at Work





The California Chamber of Commerce has issued a claim that the new legalization ballot measure in California would allow employees to show up “high” or even smoke marijuana while at work. Their claim is a blatant and obvious misrepresentation of the proposition and the law it would create.

The section of the proposed law which the Chamber misinterprets reads as follows:

“The existing right of an employer to address consumption that actually impairs job performance by an employee shall not be affected.”

The Chamber claims that this means that the only way to prove “impairment” is after an accident when a drug test could be performed. They patently ignore current rulings that interpret “impairment” as being any type of physical impairment that creates a safety hazard or causes an employee to be unable to perform their job function. This is used often when employees arrive at work drunk, have an injury, or even under the influence of drugs.

This does not change under proposed legalization, no matter what the Chamber might say about it.

The obvious misinterpretation by the Chamber of Commerce is being chided as purely political in nature. The new law would make possession of up to an ounce, growing of up to 25 square feet of plants on private property, and the use of marijuana by adults over 21 years of age legal in California. It would not make it legal for them to smoke it at work, endanger customers or other employees, etc. Federal drug-free workplace rules would still apply in most industries that use them as well.

[source Associated Press]

Tags: California, legalization, Prop 19