We’re living in a time of purgatory, The greening of America is going through some serious growing pains. Like an awkward teenage boy who has a newly minted man body but still the emotions of a kid. Maybe it’s like the “don’t ask, don’t tell” era of drug policy, coastal America responded to proclamations of being gay as they do now, with a shrug and an indifferent “can you hand me my latte?” While the country is overwhelmingly in support of cannabis for both medicinal and recreational use, we not quite sure what that means in daily life. On the one hand, California dispensaries are a mish-mash of the entire eclectic California culture, old people and skater kids standing shoulder to shoulder to legally buy weed. On the other hand, the Biden administration fired five staffers for testing THC positive and a young black man is serving life in Mississippi on a possession charge. So, where are we? Nobody really knows but there is progress slowly eclipsing the old tenets of reefer madness. Older people who have found great arthritis relief were lying about it, then sort of coming out of the closet and saying in a hushed stage whisper “it’s Marijuana, shhh!” But now? Meh. Not much fanfare. So why are employers still testing for cannabis? Is it because we have to clean our collective bodies from the stench of the drug war? Maybe nobody wants to be first in line at the buffet for fear of looking impolite. Whatever the reason, reefer madness is still with us. Slowly, very slowly, like melting a glacier with a hairdryer it seems to be fading into the annals of history and forcing a “can you believe people used to get arrested for using cannabis?” culture that is right on the surface is where we are, ready to crack and break like an egg.
Yesterday, online retail Goliath, Amazon, announced that they would no longer test potential or current employees for cannabis use. They took a step further and announced they would lobby for federal legalization. One could argue this is a self-serving chess match, perhaps they are looking to corner the home-delivered cannabis market, whatever the reason, it comes as a welcome change among lovers of liberty and stoners alike.
Amazon employs nearly 800k people and it’s growing. It won’t be long before a million people work there. That’s a significant number of people who can use cannabis without fear of law or employment issues. It would seem natural that other such institutions would be close behind. Nobody wants to drive an oil-burning, gas-guzzling Buick in a neighborhood full of Teslas, so will other corporate giants follow suit with Amazon? They will. Look to Silicon Valley to be the next domino to fall. All those young people in San Francisco and down the peninsula riding scooters to work at Facebook and Google, can’t be happy about the prying big brother eyes and finger-wagging shame of a drug test, and why should they? Silicon Valley is nothing if not smug about weekends in Napa and wine arrogance. Nobody bats an eye at that culture, why should anyone care if someone uses cannabis? From there, can Hollywood be far behind?
When Colorado went legal, the naysayers predicted drug anarchy, they predicted a debacle of stoners ruining the landscape, the snow, the skiing, everything would be destroyed. What happened was millions of people went on with their lives, they were able to access a safe product and they paid taxes. Like dominoes they fell, Governor after Governor wanting the tax revenue ushered in a new era in American life. Unfortunately, like a pesky mosquito in one’s ear, the drug screen lingered in American corporate life and still does. But maybe that’s ending.
If Amazon has done this, other institutions will as well. So hold steady lovers of the green, your day is coming to live in the mainstream without shame, and that includes where you work.