CA: Can employers test for weed in California in 2024?

A bill that became a California law in 2024 makes it illegal for an employer to “discriminate against a person… if the discrimination is based upon the person’s use of cannabis off the job and away from the workplace.”

The bill does give marijuana users in California additional protection, but does it mean jobs in California cannot test for marijuana at all?

Drug Testing at Work

The new law, Assembly Bill 2188, makes it clear — an employer cannot fire someone for cannabis showing up in their hair, blood, or urine. In fact, it is now illegal for an employer to ask potential employees if they have used cannabis or marijuana.

This means that if a person has used marijuana in the past, they cannot be penalized for it. People can also not be penalized for using weed away from the workplace and off the job.

Psychoactive effects

AB 2188 frequently references the “psychoactive” effects of cannabis. Merriam-Webster defines psychoactive as “affecting the mind or behavior.”

While the bill does offer some protections, it is still illegal to come to work if you are high or bring marijuana to the workplace. AB 2188 specifies that drug tests need to determine these psychoactive effects, and common tests for marijuana show nothing that could affect an employee’s performance.

“The intent of drug tests is to identify employees who may be impaired,” the bill reads. “While there is consensus that an employee should not arrive at a worksite high or impaired, when most tests are conducted for cannabis, the results only show the presence of the nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolite and have no correlation to impairment on the job.”

However, there are other, permitted, types of tests that do not measure the presence of nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolites.

“These alternative tests include impairment tests, which measure an individual employee against their own baseline performance and tests that identify the presence of THC in an individual’s bodily fluids,” the bill says.

Exemptions

This law does not apply to employers in the building and construction trades or employees hired for “positions that require a federal government background investigation.”