LET'S GUARD AGAINST ANY IMPAIRMENT

It is good to see folks looking for alternatives to random drug
testing for employment and the right to fire employees, or deny
employment to otherwise qualified employees/applicants simply because
they are legally consuming cannabis to mitigate symptoms which would
otherwise prevent them from working at all.

In which case taxpayers would be paying the bills rather than the
cannabis patients paying their own way.

Many cannabis patients prefer to pay their own way. Just like everyone
else.

The idea of limiting testing to cause-related instances rather than
random testing sounds good. Do you mean that it would no longer be
required pre-employment or randomly after being hired, and would only
be required if there were an accident or an incident to cause
suspicion of impairment? By law?

How would this work with the federal drug-free workplace requirements
with which many companies are forced to comply? How would this prevent
accidents?

Better, in my opinion, would be to recognize that there are all kinds
of reasons people make mistakes and have accidents on the job. Is
medical cannabis in the top 10? The USAF has impairment testing for
pilots. They have to pass every time before they are allowed fly.

No matter what the cause, sleep deprived parents, too much caffeine, a
hangover, worry about your kid in a war, we need to know there is a
way to be sure we are all safe, especially on the job and on the road.

We all need our family members to come home safe at the end of each
day.

Let's work together to address and prevent any form of impairment from
compromising workplace safety.

Kristen Gustafson, Portland