Beginning in 2024, both Washington and California will prohibit employers from basing hiring decisions on an applicant’s legal marijuana use.
Effective January 1, 2024, employers are prohibited from discriminating against job applicants on the basis of lawful, off-the-job marijuana use. Specifically, employers may not rely on preemployment drug tests that screen for
Cannabis: In Focus
Continue Reading Cannabis Legal Report – Week of October 2, 2023
This blog series addresses common employment-related issues for cannabis industry professionals.
This post addresses overtime rate requirements that manufacturers and retailers of cannabis products should consider to ensure compliance with applicable state and federal law.
In addition to ensuring that employee time is accurately recorded, employers should be mindful of the applicable overtime requirements and
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2188 (AB 2188) into law on September 18, 2022. AB 2188 will amend the state’s employment anti-discrimination law, the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), and make it an unlawful practice for an employer to discriminate against an adult applicant or employee based upon the “person’s use of
This blog series addresses common employment-related issues for cannabis industry professionals.
This post addresses meal and rest break requirements manufacturers and retailers of cannabis products should consider to ensure compliance with applicable state and federal law.
In addition to ensuring accurate timekeeping, employers should be mindful of various state-level meal and rest break laws, if any, that are applicable to their nonexempt employees. For example, California state law generally requires employers to provide nonexempt employees with a paid rest period of 10 consecutive minutes for every four hours of work, or major fraction thereof, and a 30-minute unpaid meal period for every work period of five or more hours in a day. Other states have similar requirements.Continue Reading Wage and Hour Compliance: Meal and Rest Breaks
This blog series addresses common employment-related issues for cannabis industry professionals.
This first post addresses timekeeping considerations for manufacturers and retailers of cannabis products to ensure compliance with applicable state and federal law. Future posts will address other employment-related issues, including the administration of meal and rest periods, overtime and regular rate considerations, engaging independent contractors, exempt and nonexempt employment classifications in industry-specific roles, accommodating employee off-duty cannabis use, and similar topics.
Large-scale class actions and other litigation alleging violations of legal obligations regarding payment of wages and related recordkeeping constitute a large percentage of active employment-related litigation and can expose businesses, including individual founders and owners, to exorbitant financial risk. Ensuring accurate timekeeping and compliance with related requirements is key to avoiding such liability.Continue Reading New Series: Employment Law and the Cannabis Industry
Regardless of the industry, education and training your workforce is important. In the cannabis industry, it is critical and can significantly impact how consumers purchase cannabis moving forward. Perkins Coie associate Juan Fonseca Angel is joined by Maureen McNamara, Founder and Chief Facilitator of Cannabis Trainers, and Danny Gold, Co-Founder and CEO of ZolTrain an
On February 2, 2022, Republican Governor Tate Reeves signed the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act, which legalizes medical marijuana for the treatment of certain debilitating conditions. Those debilitating conditions include, among others, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, HIV/AIDs, sickle cell anemia, Alzheimer’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and autism. The law became effective immediately, making Mississippi the 37th state
As the dust continues to settle on New Jersey’s legalization and decriminalization of cannabis, employers should take note of the laws’ significant employment implications. While forthcoming regulations will better define the contours of the new requirements, below are the most pressing takeaways for New Jersey employers.
Continue Reading What New State Cannabis Legalization Means for New Jersey Employers
Leafly and Whitney Economics have issued an annual jobs report reflecting updated jobs and revenue numbers for the state-legal cannabis industry in 2020. While 2020 will be remembered as the year that a deadly pandemic shuttered thousands of small businesses, it should also be remembered as the year that set the cannabis industry on a path to become a leading economic contributor to the U.S. economy.
Continue Reading Leafly Releases Job Report: Cannabis Job Growth “Astonishing”