Vermont’s Governor Phil Scott signed a recreational marijuana law on January 22, 2018. The law is the first recreational marijuana law to be enacted by a state legislature without a ballot initiative. It will take effect on...more
A federal court in Massachusetts dismissed the age and gender discrimination claims of a long-term employee who was fired after he refused to take a “reasonable suspicion” drug test. Tombeno v. FedEx Corporate Services, Inc.,...more
Three days after retail sales of recreational marijuana became legal in California, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced a new marijuana enforcement policy that calls for rescinding the long-standing, lenient...more
Three days after retail sales of marijuana became legal in California, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced today a new marijuana enforcement policy which rescinds long-standing policy set by the Obama...more
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration announced December 8, 2017 that during calendar year 2018, the minimum random drug testing rate will be increased to...more
The drug testing panel utilized by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s operating agencies will change on January 1, 2018. (Click here to read our blog post on that change). DOT published guidance on December 1, 2017 to...more
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced in a rule to be published in the Federal Register on November 13, 2017, that it will expand its drug testing panel to include four...more
The Maine House of Representative upheld November 6, 2017 Governor Paul R. LePage’s veto of a bill to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana. The 74-62 vote fell 17 votes short of the two-thirds margin required to...more
Governor Paul R. LePage of Maine vetoed a bill to legalize and regulate marijuana on November 3, 2017. In a letter to the Maine Legislature, he urged the Legislature to “sustain this veto and continue to work to get this...more
Federal law does not preempt the Connecticut medical marijuana statute’s prohibition on employers’ firing or refusing to hire qualified medical marijuana patients, even if they test positive on an employment-related drug...more
Employers cannot refuse to hire a medical marijuana cardholder, even if the individual admittedly would not pass the employer’s pre-employment drug test required of all applicants, a Rhode Island state court has held under...more
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration’s (“FRA”) final rule expanding drug and alcohol testing to maintenance-of-way (“MOW”) employees takes effect on June 12, 2017. MOW employees are...more
A public employee established a Fourth Amendment violation by several individual supervisors of his former employer when they selected him for reasonable suspicion drug testing – and later discharged him — based on an...more
West Virginia Governor Jim Justice signed legislation that legalizes the use of marijuana for medicinal uses on April 19, 2017. The new law, Senate Bill 386, known as “The West Virginia Medical Cannabis Act,” permits patients...more
Last November, Maine was one of four states in which voters approved a new recreational marijuana law. Maine’s law took effect on January 30, 2017; however, emergency legislation passed on January 27, 2017 delayed the...more
President Trump signed a Congressional Joint Resolution March 31 that will permit states to pass measures allowing for broader drug testing of applicants for unemployment benefits. The resolution nullified a U.S. Department...more
In light of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s recent comments that the Department of Justice may seek “greater enforcement” of the federal laws prohibiting the recreational use of marijuana, eleven U.S. Senators sent...more
In one of the Trump Administration’s first public statements on recreational marijuana, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer stated in a press conference today that the Department of Justice may seek “greater enforcement”...more
Today the U.S. Department of Transportation published a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register in which it proposes to amend its drug testing program regulation to add four synthetic opioids (hydrocodone,...more
Election Day 2016 saw voters approve new marijuana laws in seven states. There are now a total of 28 states (plus the District of Columbia) with medical marijuana laws and 8 states (plus the District of Columbia) with...more