Sample Employment Drug and Alcohol Resources

Marijuana’s legalization has many implications for workplace policy.

This Employment sampler from Practical Law Canada contains extracts from various resources that reflect the upcoming legalization. Resources include:

• Legal Update, Cannabis Legalization and the Workplace: This Legal Update reviews the implications for the workplace of legalized, recreational cannabis. Issues surveyed include occupational health and safety, disability accommodation, discipline and policy development.
• Practice Note, Drugs and Alcohol in the Workplace: Overview (Excerpt): This Practice Note excerpt provides an overview of drug and alcohol issues in the Canadian workplace. It briefly surveys the principal legal issues that stem from employee drug and alcohol use, including marijuana, on issues of health & safety, disability accommodation, privacy and discipline. It also briefly reviews key considerations in developing workplace drug and alcohol policies and provides links to other key resources on employee substance use. 
• Practice Note, Drug and Alcohol Testing: Overview (Excerpt): This Practice Note excerpt provides an overview of drug and alcohol testing in the Canadian workplace. It reviews the competing interests of workplace safety, employee privacy and human rights that shape drug and alcohol testing jurisprudence, as well as the different treatment testing receives in unionized vs. non-unionized workplaces.
• Drug and Alcohol Policy (Non-Safety-Sensitive Workplace) (Excerpt): This excerpt is of a model employment policy addressing workplace drug and alcohol issues. This policy can be incorporated into an employee handbook or used as a stand-alone policy document.