The share of American staff who examined constructive for medicine hit a two-decade excessive because of a surge within the leisure use of marijuana, however a scarcity of workers has pressured corporations to chop again on the variety of assessments administered, in response to a report.
Quest Diagnostics, a drug-testing laboratory, discovered that just about 4% of the greater than 6 million American workers who had been examined for managed substances in 2021 examined constructive, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That’s compares to 2020, when solely 2.7% of drug assessments performed on behalf of employers got here again constructive for marijuana.
Final 12 months’s determine additionally represents a 50% improve from 2017 — when leisure use of marijuana was authorized in simply eight states plus the District of Columbia.
Since then, 18 states have made it authorized to eat marijuana with out the necessity for a prescription from a health care provider.
Whereas the proportion of constructive assessments elevated, the variety of assessments administered by corporations fell final 12 months as employers had been keen to maintain as a lot of their staff as doable because of the financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
The lower in assessments was additionally attributed to altering cultural attitudes about marijuana. Some states even prohibit corporations from utilizing constructive marijuana check outcomes as a consider hiring choices.
Final 12 months, New York state issued new guidance that bans employers from testing workers for hashish except the employee appears visibly stoned on the job.

Firms that had been beset by employee shortages and that had been headquartered in states that enable leisure use of marijuana didn’t trouble to manage as many assessments final 12 months as in comparison with 2020, in response to Quest Diagnostics.
Final 12 months, there have been 6.7% fewer urine samples that had been examined for THC, the psychoactive compound present in marijuana which is accountable for giving customers the “excessive,” in comparison with 2020.
In states the place leisure use of marijuana is authorized, that quantity grew to greater than 10%, in response to the Journal.
“We actually heard from a few of our employer prospects that they had been having problem discovering certified staff to go the drug check,” stated Dr. Barry Pattern, a senior science guide for Quest.
Hashish remains illegal on the federal level. New Mexico on Friday would be the newest state to legalize leisure marijuana.