Some find out they can fail drug tests, lose their jobs if taking legal CBD products

CHARLOTTE — Many people turn to CBD products to relieve pain or stress. CBD products are legal in both Carolinas as long as they come from hemp, not marijuana, and they only have a certain amount of THC, the chemical that causes the high (.3% or less).

However, the FDA doesn’t regulate these products. So, if the label isn’t accurate, you could end up taking more than .3% and testing positive at work.

Michael Sims owns Crowntown Cannabis. “We tell every one of our customers this is a real threat,” he said. “This is a real issue.”

He told Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke that he randomly tests his products to make sure they’re not above the legal limit. But he still puts a flame emoji on everything that contains THC, so customers know the risk with drug testing.

“We tell people you will fail the drug test with taking this product if you have to take a drug test,” Sims said. “Even though it’s a legal product.”

Will Fong knows that as well as anyone. He’s an employment lawyer and says one of his clients took CBD for pain and anxiety and it cost her her job.

“This was sort of a wake-up for her: this can happen to me too,” he told Stoogenke.

She sued her employer. Both sides agreed she was a good worker. In fact, the court says her supervisor said he “never saw any bad signs of performance.”

But it didn’t matter. She failed two drug tests and her company fired her. “That’s the sole reason that they terminated her,” Fong said.

In fact, he says, “Her supervisor from that job left and found another job somewhere else and he actually hired her because he was so happy with her performance.”

Still, the court sided with her former employer, saying it had the right to do what it did.

Stoogenke reached out to the company that fired Fong’s client to see if it has any thoughts to share on this emerging issue. It didn’t respond in time for this report.

Fong says the takeaway from this case is employees need to be careful and employers face tough decisions.

“If you’ve got an employee who’s taking something that’s legal and they test positive, just by failing the drug test, if you’ve got a drug testing policy, you’re safe to fire them. But the thing you want to ask yourself, I think, is should we?” he said.

Kevin von der Lippe is a private investigator for Catapult, a not-for-profit that provides HR services for employers. He told Stoogenke he thinks businesses are grappling with this issue.

The Journal of the American Medical Association released a study earlier this year where researchers looked at federal statistics for 2006-2020 and found workplace injuries went up 9.6% among workers 20-34 years old after those states legalized recreational marijuana.

“It’s not a huge movement, but there’s certainly some companies that have decided not to test for that,” he said. “That risk-reward type of equation. Do you attract more employees? Do you have safety concerns?”

Stoogenke’s takeaways for you:

- If you use CBD products, know there’s a risk. They’re not regulated. So, even if you think what you’re using is legal, it may not be.

- Your employer can do what it wants. It can drug test you and if you fail, you can be fired.

- If you’re worried, you may want to start by checking your company’s drug policy. See if it tests for THC.

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