Amazon is adjusting their company drug testing policy to treat marijuana use in the same fashion as alcohol use for any positions that aren’t regulated by the Department of Transportation.
In a message to the company’s U.S. operations employees, Dave Clark—Amazon’s CEO of Worldwide Consumer—pointed to the still-growing number of states who have enacted varying levels of marijuana legalization as a key inspiration for the decision.
“In the past, like many employers, we’ve disqualified people from working at Amazon if they tested positive for marijuana use,” Clark said in the message, which was also shared in a public blog post. “However, given where state laws are moving across the U.S., we’ve changed course. We will no longer include marijuana in our comprehensive drug screening program for any positions not regulated by the Department of Transportation, and will instead treat it the same as alcohol use. We will continue to do impairment checks on the job and will test for all drugs and alcohol after any incident.”
Per Clark, Amazon’s public policy team will also be “actively supporting” the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2021, which congressional leaders reintroduced in May.
Reached by email for comment on Wednesday, Paul Armentano—the deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)—said Amazon’s decision marks “a reflection of today’s changing cultural landscape.” Armentano also noted the fact that suspicionless marijuana testing in the workplace has never been a policy based on evidence:
At the federal level, and for those in hardline conservative states who have remained reluctant to enact sensible marijuana policies, the battle continues. As NORML’s political director Justin Strekal explained last month, President Biden’s recently proposed government budget consists of both positive and negative developments on the marijuana policy front.
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