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Amazon ends testing most employees for cannabis, will lobby for legalization
- cratermoon 5y agomost: anyone not in a job that requires it by law, either state or federal. Drivers, for example, will continue to be tested because DOT drug tests are law.
- detaro 5y agopreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27364331 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27364331
- _red 5y ago...drugs, but not unions...interesting what they support
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- somehnacct3757 5y agoI don't see why there would be any correlation between cannabis support and union support. What is interesting about Amazon's position?
- nickff 5y agoI think the parent commenter is attempting a sort of sarcastic criticism of Amazon for not following some progressive orthodoxies.
- giantg2 5y agoIs it just me or does anyone else think that lobbying money could be put to better use on other topics?
- frogpelt 5y agoI don't mind them lobbying for it. What confuses me is when a corporation cannot find middle ground. Why do you go from one position of testing people for cannabis and firing offenders to the next of lobbying for legalization? Why not just stop testing? The only explanation I can muster is they want to sell it.
- giantg2 5y agoThat's sort of what I was getting at. This seems like PR thing.
- renewiltord 5y agoOf course that will be the case. That’s usually the nature of spending money. It’s why currency and the market are such powerful things. They permit a weighted aggregation of preferences. For instance, I think that money spent on Porsche Panameras could be put to better use. The fact that different groups have different preferences doesn’t seem all that interesting.
- midev 5y agoYes, it would be cheaper if we didn't have to drag half the country into modern society. Imagine all the money we could have saved had we not needed court cases to establish LGBT rights, for example.
- giantg2 5y ago"if we didn't have to drag half the country into modern society." That seems a little inflammatory. It depends on the issue which subsets of the country are being dragged.
- 5y ago
- swayvil 5y agoNow I can zoom around the warehouse on my forklift while drooling baked.
- prophesi 5y agoJust like with alcohol, if your recreational substances interfere with work performance, you're much likely to be laid off. I imagine this is especially true with Amazon and their notoriously tough work conditions.
- swayvil 5y agoYou people have a very roundabout way of making a statement.
- madcows 5y agoOperating machinery under the influence of anything that inhibits your ability is a bad idea and potentially illegal regardless of the substance's legality.
- krsdcbl 5y agoactually more beneficial to their workers than the "burnout box"
- farnsworth 5y agoMarijuana legalization is massively popular across the entire political spectrum. It's legal in several states producing no horrible headline disasters as far as I'm aware. So why hasn't it been legalized federally? Seems like a slam dunk for any party. I'm old enough to remember all the rumors about how Trump would try to legalize it via executive order right before the election and at other times in his presidency (I have no idea whether that is actually possible/legal)
- LiquidSky 5y agoNot having numbers handy, I suspect the problem is that while polls do show widespread support generally, that doesn't hold true across demographics and districts. For example, older voters tend to vote Republican, and I can imagine that marijuana legalization isn't as popular among that group. If you were a Republican counting on support from that demographic, it would make sense to oppose it. Or maybe in your particular district it isn't a popular position, at least not popular enough to stick your neck out for it, especially when your opponents will likely hit you with a "soft on crime"/"moral corruption" attack if you try.
- madcows 5y agoSo many conservatives smoke pot now, especially here in Florida. Weed used to be a "friendly" signal, but not anymore. For example, my pothead sister is a HUGE Karen. Ie can't where a mask because "breathing issues", but that doesn't stop her from smoking joints! Her BF sells weed illegally. And she manages to complain about pride month. I'm 30, and she's almost ten years younger. Point is, sadly, weed smoking doesn't mean liberal.
- devilbunny 5y agoI wouldn't be so terribly sure. <em>Mississippi</em> voters approved medical marijuana last year by a fairly strong majority https://ballotpedia.org/Mississippi_Ballot_Measure_1,_Initiative_65_and_Alternative_65A,_Medical_Marijuana_Amendment_(2020) https://ballotpedia.org/Mississippi_Ballot_Measure_1,_Initia.... The vote was complicated by competing "initiatives", one of which was written by the legislature, and by a legal challenge to the rules surrounding initiatives in the state that ultimately led to the state Supreme Court striking it down, but 68.5% approved of at least one of the two competing proposals, and of them 73.7% voted for the one that was actually a popular initiative. It was popularly perceived that the "medical" requirement would not last for more than a few years before recreational was legalized. So while it might still be a deal-killer in, say, Utah, I don't think it holds nearly the sway it did even ten years ago. It got almost as many votes as the presidential race, and even if you assume that every Biden voter was pro-legalization, there are nearly 300k extra "yea" votes you have to account for. You only make that go away if you assume that every Biden voter was pro-legalization and voted for the citizen initiative, and that every Trump voter who voted to legalize voted for the (more restrictive) legislative proposal instead of just voting against it or choosing the citizen proposal.
- knoebber 5y agoBrave New World vibes
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- travellingprog 5y agoHow much longer till people can start receiving a Prime delivery of an ounce of fine Amazon Basics Indica?
- yellow_lead 5y agoThe fraud implications will keep me from ever buying any drug from Amazon.
- omgwtfbbq 5y agoVerify purity with blockchain. Quick someone give me VC money plz.
- luckman212 5y agoWhat about vitamins? I (reluctantly) buy some vitamins from Amzn but I always wonder if they are real or just wood shavings mixed with rat droppings or whatever.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoWell I'm not even allowed to purchase beer or liquor on Amazon, even when Whole Foods sells beer/wine so- not for awhile?
- permo-w 5y agoyou can in the UK
- GekkePrutser 5y agoSpain too. Probably a local law thing. I'm sure there's some US states forbidding it so they probably have it banned for the whole US to avoid mistakes?
- david_allison 5y agoYou can purchase alcohol and CBD on Amazon UK
- jppope 5y agoMy question is: How is this benefitting Amazon? Which I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on why. Is it a competitive/recruiting move to have unskilled workers prefer working for Amazon over Walmart/Target? Do they believe it will increase employee retention? There must be some business reason, otherwise they wouldn't lobby they would just allow it.
- gre 5y agoBuy Legal Weed at amazon.com
- brendoelfrendo 5y agoWeed is popular with middle/upper-middle class millennial techies, especially in liberal states like Amazon's home state of Washington. I doubt Amazon cares all that much about unskilled workers, they're hoping this will make them a more attractive home for tech talent.
- perl4ever 5y agoEven with security clearances, there's been some effort at compromise for quite a while.
- milkytron 5y ago> How is this benefiting Amazon? Larger candidate pools is probably the biggest thing. But they might also realize that drug tests for weed aren't really that great because it stays in our bodies for so long compared to other drugs that could be used on a Friday night, and not show up in a drug test taken on the following Monday. > Is it a competitive/recruiting move to have unskilled workers prefer working for Amazon over Walmart/Target? Having people prefer to work at Amazon is a plus, this goes back to the larger candidate pool. > Do they believe it will increase employee retention? I can't speak on their behalf, but it could if an employee prefers to work for a company that does not drug test them for cannabis. If their other potential employers are drug testing for cannabis, it's an incentive for the employee to stay.
- petee 5y ago
- bitL 5y agoWhy are we cheering so much for normalizing deviance? What's the next step after cannabis is considered normal and teenagers need to rebel?
- flurben 5y agoIn what way is it deviant?
- bitL 5y agoIt makes people weak, unable to control themselves and resist urges. That transfers to other areas of life or even civilization.
- mtnGoat 5y agoplease provide scientific proof of these claims. i know many successful potheads that do not have any of those issues.
- bitL 5y agoAnd I know many potheads that see dragons. Please provide a scientific proof your potheads don't suffer from accelerated cognitive decline. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/the-effects-of-marijuana-on-your-memory https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/the-effects-of-... https://practicalneurology.com/articles/2015-oct/recreational-marijuana-and-cognitive-decline-what-every-clinical-neurologist-needs-to-know https://practicalneurology.com/articles/2015-oct/recreationa... "Those with cannabis dependence at the first three or four follow-up visits experienced significant cognitive decline from three to eight IQ points. This was noted in the persistence of cannabis users and those with cannabis dependence." You are a free person, but why impose this danger on everyone? You can always skirt the law if you decide so, why make other people in their most formative years dumb?
- mosiuerbarso 5y agoThey used to say the same thing about motion pictures last century: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19131008&id=IvkQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=75IDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3140,769234&hl=en https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19131008&id=... I remember reading that quite a lot of people didn't like Elvis too for his provocative dancing and believed he'd have a corrupting influence on the youth of the time. In retrospect these things didn't turn out to be so bad after all.
- fl0wenol 5y agoThat's great, Jeff. Say, when will you stop with the union-busting?
- atatatat 5y agoOh, that's not him, you can't hold him and his legacy responsible for that. </s>
- t8e56vd4ih 5y agois that good? no, it's not. it's business. amazon will lobby for its market, not for my right to grow my own supply.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoThat's really dope :) Though I guess I'll be stoned here for making stupid puns. Get off your high horses!
- perl4ever 5y agoDo tech companies test employees for drugs on an ongoing basis? The only thing I've encountered is a drug test at the time of onboarding, and then never again.