Originally Posted by kane

Here is the difference.

If I work a normal Mon-Fri job and on Saturday I have several drinks and even get drunk, by Monday all is fine and I am back to normal. If they were to test me I would pass. Weed can stay in your system for up to 30 days. So if I get baked on Saturday and tested on Monday I will likely test positive. I am then going to have to explain to my employer that I smoked it on Saturday, not Monday morning.

My brother's job is a good example of this in action. He works in commercial construction. If there is an accident on the job site everyone on the site gets drug tested that day. If you test positive you get punished. How severely depends on your involvement in the accident. If you were involved in the accident you will likely get fired. If you were just on the job site, but had nothing to do with the accident you will likely get suspended without pay for a few days, written up etc and if you get multiples of these you could get fired.

A handful of months ago there was an incident where a guy got hurt on a job site. Another guy, who had nothing to do with the accident, tested positive for booze and got suspended for a few days. He explained that he had been out drinking the night before and likely still had some in his system, but he wasn't drunk. He hadn't broken any laws, but the company explained to him that they don't care what he does on his own time. They do care if he comes to work drunk or high and even though he said he was fine they had no real way of proving that.

So my brother has already said legal or not, he's not partaking because he isn't going to throw away 15 years of work to get high.