A recent survey has found more Colorado employers are relaxing their marijuana testing policies and fewer of them are firing workers who test positive for weed compared to a few years ago.
Only 48 percent of Colorado companies with “well-defined” drug testing policies will fire a worker for a first-time positive test for pot, according to data collected by the Employers Council in November. That’s down from 53 percent in 2014. Meanwhile, 5 percent of companies surveyed have dropped marijuana from their pre-employment drug screening program in the last two years and 2 percent have stopped screening for it altogether.
The council — a Denver nonprofit organization formerly known as the Mountain States Employers Council — has polled Colorado employers on their drug testing policies with a special emphasis on marijuana every other year since 2014. That’s the year recreational pot sales became legal in Colorado after voters approved Amendment 64 in 2012.
A total of 636 companies replied to the survey in November but just 371 organizations claimed to have “well-defined” drug testing policies they could speak to. The responding workplaces hail from a variety of industries and regions within the state.
“A lot of companies began testing for the first time (in 2014), but it seems like it has calmed down a lot since then because the sky has not actually fallen,” Curtis Graves, an attorney with the Employers Council, said of this year’s survey findings. “Pre-employment drug testing seems to be down across the board but particularly for marijuana.”
Read the full story via The Denver Post.
