New study shows no correlation between cannabis use and workplace injuries

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Researchers confirm the findings of all previous studies related to cannabis and the workplace

People who have used cannabis during the past year are no more likely than non-users to suffer an injury at work, according to data published in The Journal Occupational Medicine Researchers from the University of Toronto’s, Department of Occupational Medicine, studied the relationship between cannabis use and work-related injuries in a survey of 136,500 Canadian workers. The survey found “no association between past-year cannabis use and work-related injury” for employees.

“To the best of our knowledge, this was the largest population-based cross-sectional study examining the association between past-year cannabis use and work-related injuries… We found that workers reporting using cannabis more than once in the past year were no more likely to report having experienced a work-related injury over the same time period in a large cohort of the Canadian working population,” the report stated.

They found that employees who consume cannabis outside of work don’t suffer any more work-related injuries than those employees who don’t consume cannabis. Lawmakers in New York City, Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, DC have proposed legislation limiting the use of cannabis-specific pre-employment drug screening, and Maine and Nevada have limited employer’s ability to deny workers a job if they tested positive for cannabis on a pre-employment drug test.

“Suspicionless marijuana testing in the workplace is not now, nor has it ever been, an evidence-based policy. Rather, these discriminatory practices are a holdover from the zeitgeist of the 1980s ‘war on drugs.’ But times have changed; attitudes have changed, and in many places, the marijuana laws have changed. It is time for workplace policies to adapt to this new reality and to cease punishing employees for activities they engage in during their off-hours that pose no workplace safety threat,” said deputy director Paul Armentano.