BY RUTH HILL R.N.
Researchers at the John Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore and Temple University in Philadelphia analyzed two-decades of data from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative survey of Americans over 50 and their spouses. The purpose was to determine the impact of medical marijuana access laws on subjects’ health and workforce participation. Their finding demonstrated health improvements experienced by older men and women with resultant increased participation in the labor market. Medical marijuana laws in this study showed a “9.4 percent increase in the probability of employment and a 4.6 percent to 4.9 percent increase in hours worked per week” among those over the age of 50.
Previous analyses of the impact of medical cannabis laws on various health and welfare outcomes report that legalization is associated with a reduction in obesity-related medical costs, decreased rates of opioid addiction and mortality, fewer workplace absences, and reduced Medicare costs.
Gov. Newsom on July 8, 2019, with stealth like precision signed a little-noticed bill to ban drug-test masking aids such as additives and synthetic urine. The bill, AB 851 by Jim Cooper (Sacramento), passed quietly and unanimously through both houses with no debate or input from opponents.
Cal NORML blasted the bill as a gift to the powerful drug testing industry. “Drug tests have never been FDA proven to be safe or effective for preventing drug abuse or judging employment fitness,” says Cal NORML director Dale Gieringer. “This bill criminalizes products used to protect consumers against an unproven and widely abused technology that wrongly discriminates against legal marijuana users.”
Laws in Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia prohibit employers from discriminating against workers on the basis of their status as a medical marijuana patient, and exempt employers who are required to follow federal drug-testing mandates. The laws in Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Minnesota and Rhode Island specify that a positive drug test alone does not indicate impairment.
Anecdotally in my experience in CA, some internal institution policies, are testing upon hire but are prohibited from retesting employees.
Justin Strekal, opinion contributor for The Hill, and the political director for NORML writes on 7/9/2019, “the senseless policy of cannabis discrimination causes the loss of access to higher education, the inability to qualify for government-subsidized housing, employment discrimination, the loss of child custody, homelessness, etc. Over the past five decades, well over 20 million Americans have been arrested for violating marijuana laws. As a result, whole communities have lost generations of citizens to cyclical poverty and incarceration due to the collateral consequences of having a cannabis-related conviction on their record.
According to an analysis by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism in 2018, arrest data shows blacks in Wisconsin are four times more likely than whites to be arrested for violating marijuana possession laws. Meanwhile excessive alcohol use continues to be the leading cause of approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 to 2010.
Broad spectrum Hemp Oil CBD (Cannabidiol) which has zero delta 9 Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is a stopgap for many employee’s subject to repeat drug testing. However, the synergetic effects of both THC and CBD are missing. Hemp products are not always effective for most conditions. Users genetics bioavailability and cultivation techniques determine efficacy of hemp vs. marijuana.
Do not order hemp products online unless recommended by a medical professional. Since the farm bill legalized hemp production online promoters are proliferating with automatic renewal that users are having difficulty canceling. Report them to your state’s food and agriculture department (CDFA) not the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
There are many reliable medical professionals available online to educate users on the appropriate safe use of marijuana. The following websites are: Eloise Theison RN at radiclehealthcare.com, Dustin Sulak O.D. at healer.com, Bonnie Goldstein MD at canna-centers.com and Allen Frankel MD at greenbridgemed.com Information for this article was taken from https://norml.org and https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm
Contact Ruth A Hill at hilruth@gmail.com or www.holisticcaring.com for an appointment.
