No weed for City of Corner Brook workers, with one exception

The City of Corner Brook has set out rulesfor its workers when it comes to cannabis use on the job, as the municipality looks ahead to the drug's legalization on Oct. 17.

The new policy, adopted at Monday's city council meeting, takes a zero-tolerance approach to any city employeeusing cannabis recreationally while at work, or just beforehand. That covers all municipal workers and politicians, as well as contractors to the city.

"We're telling employees that if they recreationally use, they cannot recreationally use within four hours of attending work, or reporting to work, or being at work," said Krista Rose, the city's human resources supervisor.

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If the city has grounds to believe an employee is impaired on the job, they could be subject to reasonable-cause testing, said Rose, adding such testingis new territory for the city, and that, along with the policy itself, has required a lot of thought and consideration to create.

"Ithink the biggest challenge that we faced arethe unknowns," Rose told CBC, pointing to the lack of studies or resources on how to measure or even detect impairment levels.

"With alcohol,you have the presence, the smell, the telltale [signs]. [With] the use of oil cannabis, we don't have those telltale signs. So it's going to provide us with a whole host of issues, and we know that this policy thus then has to be flexible, fluidand will be ever-changing," she said.

"So it's here now, but we know in a year's time it can potentially look quite different."

Medical marijuana

One usage gets an exception under the new policy:on-the-job cannabis for medical purposeswill be allowed.

"We try to pride ourselves on a discrimination-free and judgment-free environment,so that's the way we're moving forward. We're open, we're forward-thinking, we will provide the accommodations, but we need to be made aware," said Rose.

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She said there are currently employees who do need to use medical marijuana at work, and in the future workers will need to come forward and talk to HR to figure out how best to accommodate its use.

"Times have changed. We are an open employer. This is a way for us to move our city forward, while being compliant with legislation," said Rose.

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