Massachusetts Lawmakers Approve Bill To Provide Employment Protections For Marijuana Consumers

Massachusetts lawmakers have advanced a bill to provide employment
protections for people who use marijuana.

Members of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development on Friday
passed the legislation from Rep. Chynah Tyler (D), sending it to the House
Steering, Policy and Scheduling Committee for further consideration.

This comes about two months after a separate committee passed a similar
employment protections bill from Rep. Michael Kushmerek (D).

Under the proposal that advanced on Friday, employers would be barred from
requiring a drug test for cannabis until a conditional offer is made. Even
then, the measure states that employers may not “directly or indirectly
solicit or require an employee or prospective employee to submit to testing
for the presence of marijuana in his or her system as a condition of
employment.”

Qualifying medical marijuana patients would also be afforded specific
protections.

Employers could not “refuse to hire, terminate from employment, penalize,
fail to promote, or otherwise take adverse employment action against an
individual based upon the individual’s status as a qualifying patient
unless the individual used, possessed, or was impaired by marijuana at the
individual’s place of employment or during the hours of employment.”

“A qualifying patient’s failure to pass an employer-administered drug test
for marijuana components or metabolites may not be used as a basis for
employment-related decisions unless reasonable suspicion exists that the
qualified patient was impaired by marijuana at the qualifying patient’s
place of employment or during the hours of employment,” the bill text says.

There are exceptions built into the legislation. It would not, for example,
require employers to “permit or accommodate the use, consumption,
possession, transfer, display, transportation, sale, or growing of
marijuana in the workplace or at any time during employment.”

Also, the protections would not apply in situations where drug tests for
marijuana are mandated under a federal employment contract. Employers could
also continue to screen for cannabis for designated “safety sensitive”
positions.

In the background of this legislative effort, the Massachusetts attorney
general’s office last week confirmed it has been receiving complaints from
the public about petitioners for a 2026 ballot initiative aimed at rolling
back the state’s marijuana legalization law–with a growing number of people
alleging that signature collectors are peddling misleading information
about the proposal.

The marijuana repeal campaign, for its part, said last month that they’re
“on track” to securing enough signatures to place the initiative on the
ballot. They’re working to submit 100,000 signatures by a December 3
deadline.

Meanwhile, the head of Massachusetts’s marijuana regulatory agency recently
suggested that the measure to effectively recriminalize recreational
cannabis sales could imperil tax revenue that’s being used to support
substance misuse treatment efforts and other public programs.

Whether the cannabis measures make the cut is yet to be seen. Voters
approved legalization at the ballot in 2016, with sales launching two years
later. And the past decade has seen the market evolve and expand. As of
August, Massachusetts officials reported more than $8 billion in adult-use
marijuana sales.


*— Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug
policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon
supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps,
charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.*


*Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on
Patreon to get access. —*

Regulators are also working to finalize rules to allow for a new cannabis
consumption lounge license type, which they hope to complete by October.

Separately, in May CCC launched an online platform aimed at helping people
find jobs, workplace training and networking opportunities in the state’s
legal cannabis industry.

State lawmakers have also been considering setting tighter restrictions on
intoxicating hemp-derived products and a plan to allow individual entities
to control a larger number of cannabis establishments.

Also in Massachusetts, legislators who were working on a state budget
butted heads with CCC officials, who’ve said they can’t make critical
technology improvements without more money from the legislature.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts lawmakers recently approved a bill to establish a
pilot program for the regulated therapeutic use of psychedelics. And two
committees have separately held hearings to discuss additional
psilocybin-related measures.

The post Massachusetts Lawmakers Approve Bill To Provide Employment
Protections For Marijuana Consumers appeared first on Marijuana Moment.