With the legalization of recreational marijuana on the horizon, small businesses are learning how to adapt their policies to prepare.
At a Timmins Chamber of Commerce session today, lawyer Carly Stringer talked to businesses about marijuana in the workplace and cleared the air about what employers can or can’t do.
“You see some level of panic, when people are just thinking ‘how do I even do this’,” she said
“It’s not rocket science, you’re not reinventing the wheel, you can take certain things you already do in your workplace like how you treat alcohol, how you treat other prescription medications and use some of that as the basis for dealing with marijuana.”
When it comes to marijuana, there are two streams: medical marijuana and addiction, and recreational use.
Workers are protected under the Ontario Human Rights Code for medical marijuana, which Stringer said should be treated as any other prescribed drug, as well as for addiction, which is considered a disability. In both cases, she said the employers have a duty to accommodate workers to the point of undue hardship.
When recreational marijuana is legalized later this year, she said employers can have policies to maintain safety in the workplace and prevent hazards to employees.
Her suggestion to employers is to be mindful.
She explained that people may have stereotypical assumptions about marijuana.
“Because I think what ends up happening for some clients and some employers is they have knee jerk reactions based on assumptions they may have and what ends up happening then is they have very significant financial and legal implications. And that’s where I come in to try and resolve the problem for them,” Stringer said.
When trying to be fair in the workplace, each case is unique.
Dealing with the Human Rights Code, she said the framework requires context to consider the "specific circumstances of an individual employee.”
According to Stringer, that means each accommodation that's made for a worker, for example, should be considered based on the specific circumstances.
“And people don’t really like that because they want to have hard and fast rules and they want to be able to apply them across the board and they don’t like when the grey area comes up,” she said.
“And the unfortunate reality is that there is likely always some grey area in this and you need to look at individual circumstances of the employee and their workplace at any given time to see what’s available and what you can do.”
JTR and Custom Works already has policies in place for their employees. Joelle Charbonneau said they hope to be ahead of the game with their policies to make sure employees aren’t putting themselves or others at risk.
“Obviously there’s going to be some changes coming July 1 and the workshop today really reiterated the necessary steps that small business need to take to make sure they’re compliant with regulations and legislation, which means that we’re going to have to look at our policies and procedures and make sure that they’re up to par and they provide transparent communication for the workers and us to ensure that we’re profitable and maintain a safe workplace in these changing times,” Charbonneau said.
As the legislation changes, Stringer said there is some risk of increased claims and related problems when it comes to recreational use. She said, “some employers may not be sure how to deal with recreational use of marijuana.”
“I don’t know that we’re going to see a spike,” she said. “I think we just may see some employees becoming a bit more aware or asserting rights or entitlements they have, which may lead to more dispute resolution in the workplace.”
