Employers in New York City banned from drug testing applicants for marijuana — unless if you are applying for these jobs

Good news for job-seeking cannabis enthusiasts in NYC this week: Employers in the city will soon no longer be permitted to subject job candidates to testing for cannabis as a hiring condition.

 

 

The new bill was passed 41-4 on Tuesday by City Council and still requires the approval of Mayor Bill de Blasio, after which it will take a year to go into effect. The lead sponsor of the bill and NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said the bill is a move in the right direction. “We need to be creating more access points for employment, not less,” he said.

Some jobs, however, are excluded from the bill’s protections.

Police officers and other law enforcement, workers who supervise medical patients or people with disabilities, childcare workers, jobs that require a valid commercial driver’s license, and workers with federal or state contracts are exempt from the bill, as are all construction workers and workers whose jobs have an impact on community health and safety, as determined by the city.

The new bill was passed 41-4 on Tuesday by City Council and still requires the approval of Mayor Bill de Blasio, after which it will take a year to go into effect

Drug testing agreed upon under collective bargaining will also remain unaffected.

The move is part of NYC’s overall effort to diminish the legal consequences of cannabis consumption. In 2014, Mayor de Blasio issued an order to the NYPD to cease making arrests for the possession of small amounts of cannabis, and instead issue tickets or fines.

Although the city passed a resolution last month pressuring the state to legalize recreational cannabis, NY governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed that the cannabis legalization bill had been dropped from the state budget, despite widespread support.