Nevada law aims to prevent most employers from rejecting applicants for testing positive for pot

James DeHaven
Reno Gazette-Journal

Starting next year, most Nevada employers won’t be able to turn down a job-seeker solely for failing a marijuana drug test.

A new state law set to take effect in January will not stop business owners from testing job applicants for pot, nor will it prevent them from refusing to hire applicants who test positive for other drugs.

It will not apply to firefighters, doctors or those who drive a vehicle for a living, and also carves out broad exceptions in cases where the employer feels a hire could “adversely affect the safety of others.”

But the authors of the pioneering measure said it will help prevent marijuana-based job discrimination, which they said persists even two years after Nevadans voted to legalize recreational use of the drug.

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This June 28, 2018, photo shows one of the marijuana grow rooms Exhale Nevada in Las Vegas.

“Regardless of what you feel or think morally about a person who uses marijuana, it is now lawful conduct,” bill sponsor and Assemblywoman Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, said during a February committee hearing. “Because we created this group of people who can smoke recreational marijuana in their private time, they should be able to apply for a job and not be discriminated against and disqualified.”

Opponents — among them the Nevada Trucking Association and the National Federation of Independent Business — successfully lobbied to remove a provision that would have prohibited the use of “character assessments,” or personality tests, as a deciding factor in the hiring process.

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Despite those concessions, the measure won no shortage of praise from marijuana advocates.

Christine Kramar, representing the Nevada chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, told lawmakers she was much more worried about workers abusing alcohol on the job.

“Until we have Medicare for all, we should not be discriminating against individuals who cannot go to a physician and receive a prescription,” Kramar said during a May committee meeting. “If you are effectively using marijuana, you will be at a leveling point; you are not high.

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Customers can see and smell samples of marijunna at the Sierra Wells marijuana dispensary in Reno on Thursday Jan. 4, 2018.

“As a former manager of a 300,000-square-foot warehouse with 250 employees, my nightmare employees were those on alcohol. We should not discriminate against our consumers who use cannabis over alcohol.”

Nevada is the first state in the nation to bar employers from using a pot test to turn down job applicants. Gov. Steve Sisolak signed the law last week.

The New York City Council took a similar step in April. Maine has enacted a statute that prevents discrimination based on marijuana, though it has no specific moratorium on workplace drug testing.

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James DeHaven is the politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal. He covers campaigns, the Nevada Legislature and everything in between. Support his work by subscribing to RGJ.com right here