Sober up, folks! Here we go.

Literally.

What effect are liberalized marijuana laws having on employer drug policies?

Maybe not as much as you'd think.

The Society for Human Resources Management just came out with a survey of employer marijuana policies in states that have legalized it in some degree. Here are some highlights from the SHRM study:

*Of 224 employers who have operations in jurisdictions that have legalized ...

Readers have been clamoring for my take on the alcoholism-discrimination lawsuit filed by Steve Sarkisian against the University of Southern California.

Actually, I got one email from a reader, who had a better take on the whole situation than I do.

But who cares! I still think it's a great topic, and a case worth following!

Here's the deal, as I understand it:

Mr. Sarkisian took ...

Chanukah starts at sundown this Sunday, and Christmas is only three short weeks away. Can you throw a workplace holiday party that won't result in a lawsuit? It has been ages since we've had a quiz. Let's do it!

For more on this topic, please listen to the webinar on holiday parties that I did yesterday with Laura Kerekes and the excellent people at ThinkHR. The replay is available here.

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 ...

ROBIN'S NOTE: I am happy to have Tommy Eden back again for a guest post. Tommy is from Constangy’s offices in Opelika, Alabama, and West Point, Georgia. He drafts DOT and state-specific drug testing policies for clients nationwide, and he serves on the Board of the Substance Abuse Program Administrators Association.

Don’t get too excited about that recent decision ...

As most of you have heard, the Congressional Budget Office reported this week on the effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka "ACA," aka "Obamacare") on employment.

The media messed up in its first accounts of the CBO report, saying that the Affordable Care Act would result in a loss of more than 2 million jobs. The clear implication, if not direct statement, was that ...

First responders in West, Texas*. Sales clerks in the stores near the finish line at the Boston Marathon. Staff of the District Attorney's office in Kaufman County, Texas. Teachers and administration at Sandy Hook Elementary. Ticket-takers and popcorn-scoopers at the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

*Although the explosion at West Fertilizer Company appears to ...

A cornucopia of random employment law issues for your long weekend.

Lessons for employers from the Natalie Wood investigation. (OK, I admit this is a shameless tie-in designed to get you to read a legal blog over a holiday weekend.) But the reopening of the Natalie Wood drowning investigation after 30 years does contain a good lesson for employers -- to wit, that no matter how much time has ...