In California, marijuana has gone from being an illegal drug to being big business.

Last week Governor Jerry Brown signed into law three pieces of legislation (AB 243, AB 266, and SB 643) aimed at regulating the $1.3 billion medical marijuana industry in the state. The legislation, collectively called the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act, will take effect January 1, 2018 ...

Is that "random" drug test selection really random?

Many employers -- particularly, those in the transportation industry -- use third party vendors to do the random selections for federally mandated drug and alcohol tests. I think it's a great idea, because it prevents employees from claiming that they were selected for "random" testing in a not-very-random process.

Generally ...

Thanks very much to David Phippen from our Metro D.C. Office for letting me get some depositions taken this week and allowing me to republish his analysis here.

As we have previously reported, the National Labor Relations Board in recent years has put employee handbooks and policy manuals under a magnifying glass, searching for any provision that might, in its view, violate the ...

Where are we these days with respect to mind-altering substances and the workplace? Here's the latest, with the "substances" discussed in alphabetical order. This blog post is guaranteed accurate™ for at least the next five minutes.

ALCOHOL. Alcohol is legal, which means that it is generally recognized as the most abused of substances. Employers can prohibit its use in the ...

Last October, I posted about a consent decree entered into between Wal-Mart and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in which Wal-Mart agreed to pay $72,500 to candidate for a store job in Maryland whose offer was withdrawn because she couldn’t undergo a urine test for drugs.

The candidate had end-stage renal disease.

Now, Kmart has been hit, too, in a case involving almost ...

The National Labor Relations Board is busy -- the Board came out late last week with a decision saying that employees can have access to their employers' email systems for organizing activities under most circumstances. David Phippen has the full story here.

Also, on Friday, the Board issued its final rule on "quickie elections." David is reviewing the new rule and will have a ...

Laura Jones was offered a sales job at the Wal-Mart store in Cockeysville, Maryland, and was told that she would have to take a drug test. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Ms. Jones told an assistant store manager that she had end stage renal cancer, which prevented her from taking a urine test. The EEOC says that Jones then went to the drug testing collection ...

This drug-testing case would make a great law school final exam.

Shawn Olson of Minnesota was offered a job in West Virginia by Push, Inc., a company based in Wisconsin. Mr. Olson was asked to complete a pre-hire drug test, which was originally going to be performed in Push’s state of Wisconsin. However, for Mr. Olson’s convenience, the company allowed Mr. Olson to be tested in ...

Public employers often mistakenly believe that they have the same drug testing rights as employers in the private sector. As a recent decision from a federal court in Florida shows, it ain’t necessarily so.

Karen Voss was offered a newly created position of Solid Waste Coordinator with the City of Key West. The job entailed marketing and planning related to the city’s recycling ...

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy and Compliance, with the Office of General Counsel, has recently issued new guidance governing the collection process for substance abuse testing. Collections are sometimes considered a “weak link” in DOT drug testing programs because collectors are usually third parties, making it difficult for ...