National Pre-Employment Drug Screening Is in Decline
Over the past couple of years, employers have begun to abandon something they have been doing for decades: pre-employment screening for cannabis use. Sometimes, the reasons are purely practical, like not being able to find enough cannabis-free workers to staff their workforce. Other times, state or local laws make it difficult or impossible for companies to require a pre-employment test. Determining how many and which companies have eliminated the practice is not an exact science, as few companies have announced the change publicly. Here, we draw upon our experience as employment lawyers to discuss practical and legal reasons why pre-employment screening for cannabis may be fading. A tight labor market According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 18 percent of Americans used cannabis at least once in 2019. That number likely has gone up over the past three years. In today’s tight labor market , some companies have found it untenable to turn away a proportion o...