<p>Here’s to hoping they don’t do a follicle test, OP! <em>raises glass</em></p>
<p>Even with a medical card, individual companies have discretion to discriminate against it.</p>
<p>And @Niquii77, this was my 1 time smoking in the past 5 months. And i shaved my whole body in February preparing for this. If i can pass the pee test, which I did at home earlier today, there would never have been nearly enough THC in my body to be detectable through hair.</p>
<p>Are you going to shave your body again since you recently smoked?</p>
<p>Hair testing only picks up frequent use. 1 time smoking won’t show up at all. </p>
<p>Why’d you shave in the first place? Did you frequently smoke previously?</p>
<p>Even though several states have made marijuana legal either in general or for medical usage, it is still illegal at the federal level. So, if the company is doing government work and you get tested, its game over. Maybe someday it will become legal at both the state and the federal level. Then the problem with marijuana might then become at what level is it OK as it was just last night’s entertainment. </p>
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<p>I would not be surprised if hospitals were stricter on drug testing than many other workplaces because they want to minimize the risk of diversion of various prescription drugs around the hospital for recreational purposes. Narcotic painkillers are commonly abused for recreational purposes, so the temptation to divert some of them for recreational purposes certainly exists at hospitals where they are commonly used.</p>
<p>Update: </p>
<p>I started working today. No mention of drug screening at all. No signing anything about drug screenings. The rules and regulations or whatever says drugs aren’t tolerated, so I’m imagining a work place accident would prompt a drug test, but beyond that, i don’t think they will bother.</p>
<p>There are a lot of operator techs on the assembly line, and i definitely spotted a bunch of people that have to be on something. haha. I can imagine half this place being run out of business if they randomly tested everybody.</p>
<p>Drug testing is expensive, and if the consequences appear to be less expensive they may not want to test unless they already have reason to suspect. That doesn’t mean that you should flout the policy unless you are willing to get caught.</p>
<p>Moral of the story: Do all your drugs before you buckle down into your career.</p>
<p>I haven’t read all of the recent posts but will add that pot is a mind altering drug. If it weren’t, people wouldn’t be doing it. For those of you who see no issue with it, would you want your ICU /trauma nurse, surgeon, train engineer/conductor, airline pilot using it? It slows the reflexes and some of the pot that is sold today has been laced with angel dust, heroine, embalming fluid etc. </p>
<p>When one is buying pot from a dealer, is one sure where they have bought it from? Can one be certain that it hasn’t been laced or soaked in some other substance? </p>
<p>Don’t we want those who have our safety in their hands to be sharp mentally? </p>
<p>I saw Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s CNN special last summer, titled WEED. It was quite eye opening.</p>
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<p>Not while they are on the job. But then again, alcohol is a mind-altering drug and I have no problem if these same people use alcohol while off-duty and are not under the influence when they are doing their job.</p>
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<p>This is no longer a problem in places where it is legalized (or decriminalized) since you don’t have to go to a shady dealer to get it.</p>
<p>I get that, but trust me, the effects are long lasting…a few days or so? The stuff of 2014 is far stronger that the pot from 1974. So if you go on a pot bender on a Saturday, is your train engineer fully functioning by Monday morning? Like I said, is this a person you want driving a 20 ton train with passengers? What about that trauma surgeon who has smoked it up all weekend? Let’s be serious. </p>
<p>And as for alcohol, if you drink on Saturday, it’s out if your system in what? 12 hours or so? </p>
<p>Let’s not confuse the time frame in which one’s system is affected by drugs with the drgus’ ability to be traced within one’s system. </p>
<p>There’s also a differentiation with frequency. If I had a trauma surgeon who smoke all weekend, of course he wouldn’t be fine on Monday morning. He was just smoking the previously day and two days before that! Now, if he had a smoke on Saturday night, the situation is different, correct?</p>
<p>ITT: People who know next to nothing about weed acting as authorities on the affects of weed.</p>
<p>@NewHavenCTmom:
What does that even mean?</p>
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<p>It can be assumed that those in positions of consequence (train engineers, surgeons etc.) will not perform their duties while high. They are fully aware of the consequences of their actions. They aren’t fifteen-year-old stoners looking to get high every time they have a few hours to themselves. It doesn’t make sense that they would become a liability all of a sudden just because weed was decriminalized.</p>
<p>Okay…But I bet if a loved one perishes in a train accident or plane crash. Will you or will you not expect a urine tox screen, blood and hair samples. Come on. Let’s not be naive. Others drug habits don’t matter to most folks until something terrible happens. </p>
<p>I have a friend who works for Amtrak & I know for a fact that the conductors and engineers get high. How do I know? Because he has told me about the employees and their nonsense involving avoiding on the spot drug testing. Many have even admitted to it, they show up to work high and or with liquor on their breath. Many have gone to rehab. </p>
<p>As a health care professional, I have smelled pot on my coworkers. I honestly don’t believe in “weekend” use. It bleeds into “workdays” as well. Many people don’t have “weekends”. They work all shifts, every day of the week. Most healthcare professionals do as well as train personnel. </p>
<p>I still feel that if you are flying a plane, using a scalpel, or administering medication by mouth or IV then your brain should be firing on all cylinders. </p>
<p>Coming to work high or inebriated is different from smoking or drinking when you do not have work for a day or two, NewHaven. </p>
<p>I’m not arguing that if a fatal accident occurred, I wouldn’t want to know if that person was on any drugs or not, but you’re generalizing extremes. </p>
<p>EDIT: Actually, forget it. I am not exactly understanding your points. </p>
<p>Here is the thing:</p>
<p>Showing up to work impaired is a bad thing, especially when said impairment risks the health or lives of others. This is true whether it is alcohol, pot, or anything else.</p>
<p>Drug tests measure consumption over a certain period of time. This period of time almost always includes both on and off-duty hours. The drug test can determine if the drug was used, but it cannot tell when the drug was used any more specifically than within the window of the test, and it cannot correlate X quantity of the drug with Y amount of impairment at time Z.</p>
<p>I don’t care if people use drugs or not, so long as no one else gets hurt. You can easily fail a drug test without ever being impaired at work.</p>
<p>This thread if laughable at some points, the THC that can be detected in yours system will last for days sometimes weeks or months at a time but as for the feeling/mind altering affects of THC, well that’s gone in as little as an hour depending on how much you smoked. Also, if you smoked for a full 48 hrs (which would be really really hard, because you’d probably pass out or throw up at some point, yes you can throw up from cannabis) and you then come into work 12 hours later you aren’t going to be high still, its not going to happen, most hallucinogens, barbiturates, opiates, and amphetamines don’t even last 12 hrs. Some of you guys, as usual are coming off as fear mongering uppities when it comes to discussions outside the realm of academia.</p>
<p>@ OP here is a word of advice, save the drugs for where you: have a job already, and don’t have to worry about random drug screenings. Once you have those do what you like, on your own time but know that if you do make some crucial mistake most companies don’t care if you aren’t high at the time of the drug screening, because there is no surefire way to test that you high at that moment but the fact that you have drugs in your system is more than probable cause to act as if you do.</p>
<p>I’ve seen guys at warehouse not pay attention while on a machine and bang the racks, denting them, and even though they weren’t high at the time because of company policy they have to get drug tested when something like that happens, this said person tests positive for drug[x] and they get fired. Know the rules to your work place.</p>
<p>I have a buddy who works for Comcast, you get as little as a bad cut on you, you have to report it and at which point you get an automatic drug/alcohol screening, if you don’t report it and someone snitches you’re automatically terminated.</p>
<p>Know the rules of your workplace. </p>
<p>Or let’s say Sally gets off of work at 11pm on a Friday night, goes and smokes it up most of the night, wakes up, smokes again…and smokes on and off all day Saturday into the evening. It’s her day off so she smokes to her hearts content. Until she retires for the night at 11pm. </p>
<p>She is due back to work the next day, which is Sunday at 5am. Is she safe to perform a 6am C-section to deliver your first child? How about brain surgery on your mother? Or how about flying you and your children across the country to see family for the holidays? </p>
<p>She’s had a full day off. 24+ hours. Is she fit to take responsibility for your safety? For your loved ones? </p>