By Sheldon Spackman

Local businesses preparing to address cannabis effectively in the workplace

Sep 12, 2018 | 11:51 AM

With cannabis legalization just over a month away in Canada, local businesses had a chance on Wednesday morning to learn more about what they need to do to address cannabis effectively in the workplace.

The Red Deer and District Chamber of Commerce ‘Building Business Breakfast’ featured guest speaker Chelsey Tannahill BA, BEd from Chandler Consulting in Red Deer. She stressed the importance of having an “Impairment-Free Workplace and Substance Use Policy” in place for October 17, the date cannabis becomes legal in Canada.

Tannahill says there are three key areas for employers to focus on, including testing, policy and training.

“Making sure that any of the testing methods that we actually employ are actually supporting the objective of number two, our policy,” she explains. “So making sure that we have a fitness for duty or impairment-free policy that focuses on cannabis, calls it out and makes sure that it includes processes for handling those situations. Three, training, making sure that our employees, our supervisors and our program administrators are all well-trained on what it means to be fit, what it means to not be fit and what it means to be compliant with our policies.”

In terms of testing, Tannahill says it’s important for people to understand that the current methods being used such as urine-based testing is not an ‘impairment’ test but a ‘use’ test.

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“It tells us whether or not someone has ‘used’ a substance within an allotted amount of time,” says Tannahill. “When we’re looking at cannabis becoming legal, we’re no longer going to be able to look at it whether or not somebody ‘uses’ cannabis but rather, whether or not they’re ‘impaired’. So we need to shift our focus to an oral fluid type of testing, a saliva testing but while it’s not a 100 per cent impairment test, it is a lot closer because it’s testing for psychoactive substance and it’s giving us a lot shorter detection window, 24-36 hours.”

As far as policy is concerned, Tannahill says it’s important to have processes in their company’s Impairment-Free Workplace and Fit for Duty Policy.

“When we’re talking about liability, one of the things that often gets looked at is if we treated one employee the same as we treated another,” adds Tannahill. “Without processes to help us do that in a consistent manner, we’re always trying to remember what we did last time and leaving ourselves open to liability.”

With respect to training, Tannahill says it’s important for companies to not go about it in an onerous or expensive way.

“I would highly recommend starting with the supervisors as they are the front-line of defense against impairment,” states Tannahill. “So making sure that they are able to recognize impairment when they see it and that they’re really well-versed in what the appropriate way to handle those things are.”  

She says the biggest misconception that needs to be cleared up is that the process needs to be difficult and costly.

“Addressing cannabis in the workplace is not going to be a whole lot different than the way we address alcohol historically,” states Tannahill. “The drugs are very different but the process is the same. You couldn’t be impaired before, you can’t be impaired now.”

Tannahill says what’s really changing is our approach to impairment in the workplace and helping people understand what it means to be responsible users, rather than going with a ‘zero tolerance’ use model.

“The most important thing for people to know is that this doesn’t have to be hard,” she explains. “It doesn’t have to be scary and it doesn’t have to be expensive, you just need to be clear about what you’re wanting and make sure you have policy, testing and training that supports your objective.”