By: Diane Benjamin
It isn’t a surprise Illinois government wants to tell employers how to run their businesses. Illinois is not participating in the prosperity much of the rest of the country is experiencing because of Illinois government.
Now with the legalization of cannabis, drug testing employees could get them sued. Employees have rights to use the soon to be legal drug while employers can’t expect their employees to test marijuana free.
The Illinois Municipal League (IML) included this in their email to local government yesterday:
Since smoking weed will be legal, employers can’t discriminate against employees who test positive! Drive a truck? No problem. Work in dangerous situations? No problem.
Employers can prohibit use at work, but they have to have a good-faith reason for disciplining employees who appear to be under the influence.
Of course IML suggests talking to an employment attorney.
In Illinois the job market for attorneys interpreting laws isn’t suffering.
One more State disaster:
Eventually the minimum wage in Illinois will be $15 per hour. Businesses will close, hours will be cuts, jobs will be replaced by machines, employees will lose jobs.
Bernie Sanders found that out while campaigning for a national $15 minimum wage and paying his unionized staff less. https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-campaign-15-dollar-minimum-wage-staff-2020-controversy-1450267
Employers will get less work done while employees won’t make any more money – if they still have a job. Prices will increase thus hurting the people $15 an hour was suppose to help.
Simple economics is beyond comprehension for a government who makes laws by what “feels good”.
The pot arguments crack me up. The same people who screamed that any other type of smoking was hazardous to your health (and it is) thinks another form of smoking is a medicine and cures cancer. When are the libs going to sue the legal marijuana growers, suppliers and distributors for a civil windfall like they did the tobacco companies?
Give them time
Maybe there are exceptions, but I have never met a pothead (regular marijuana smoker) who was anything but a P.O.S. And one more thing for damn sure–they are, by definition (Federal Law), a criminal. Says a lot about their character. Coming to your day care, your Dr office, your bus driver, that guy coming toward you on the 2 lane, etc, very soon. Thanks, Illinois, you stink!
Pot stays in your system for at least 3 days after smoking a joint. I would support any business that does a drug test on employees-fire them if stoned. Stoned employees are ineffective employees!
This whole thing is such a joke. Government dictating to the private sector what they can and can not do to run a business. After all we know how well government businesses function. Another example is the “workweek law” being considered in Cook county that would determine when schedules were to be set and provide penalties to changes of such schedules. No doubt another move to socialism and a reason why business would flock to Illinois. .
Another thing to remember……unlike for traditional DUI, there currently IS NOT ONE effective and admissible field test for law enforcement to measure marijuana impairment of drivers. So that pothead behind the wheel who murders your child has a “get out of jail” pass. Read up! Look at Colorado! More blood on the Left’s hands.
Olympic athletes can use cannabis now without repercussions. They just can’t use it the day of the event. Why should my employer care what legal activities I do during my off time? As long as I am not impaired during work all should be good right? None of the people I know that are cannabis users fit the stereotype posted previously. They all have good jobs, nice houses, great families. I can almost guarantee the behaviors stereotyped also involve alcohol or other drugs.
I’m with Mike (not Maggie) on this one. Many pot smokers in everyday life are absolutely good people. Weed is a weed nothing like the legal synthetic uppers and downers that are prescribed by “practicing” doctors everyday that do literally cause serious side effects like, as per the tv warnings, suicidal thoughts. (And no I don’t smoke.)
Well Stanky, glad you also support criminals (that pesky Federal Law again). Maybe you will feel different when that stoner (or that illegal) driver runs over your grandchildren.
Forgive me if I am not as enamored by federal law as you are.
No law ever written in the history of the world has ever had a preventative or preemptive effect on the commission of a crime. Stealing is widely frowned upon by society and we have laws saying as such, yet people still hold up banks and mug little old ladies. Driving intoxicated is a crime, yet the law never once prevented a DUI tragedy. At best, law serves only as the last recourse for punitive action against a member of a society by defining the degree of punishment.
In a just world, the law would only apply to someone who violated the person, property, or rights of another. The bank robber is stealing my money. Throw them in prison. Daddy got smashed and ran into a telephone pole while his daughter WAS the seat next to him (now in the windshield). Crucify him! These sentiments are right and just in my opinion.
Drug laws as currently written are not of this spirit. It is hard for me to find what is ‘just’ by charging a person with a crime for mere possession of a ‘controlled substance’. Who exactly was harmed by this possession? A voluntary transaction was made and money was exchanged. The end.
If I am not mistaken, 40% of all inmates are in prison for simple possession. Is it truly ‘just’ to submit humans to the harsh conditions of prison for a crime that harmed no one? Is it the proper role of government to enforce a norm of personal behavior?
Once upon a time in the roaring 20’s, drinking was OK. Then it wasn’t. Then it was OK again (after a violent and bloody struggle to control the liquor trade which killed hundreds). Are my personal behaviors and norms of conduct to be controlled by so fickle a master?
It is an easier argument to make that drug laws have caused more disruption to society merely by enacting the prohibition of a thing (pot, coke, whatever). If demand is constant, the risk of punishment is more than offset by the increased reward for supplying the market. The more money that is involved, the more debased the participants are which supply this market – hence the violence, which is rarely restricted to just the participants. Thousands who had no connection or care to the drug trade have died from the overflow of the violence that spilled out BECAUSE of the prohibition (the gang-bangers don’t always get the right house when they do a drive-by). You are worried about a DUI? I am more horrified by the 1900 people who died in Tijuana Mexico just in 2017 alone. A single city in Mexico suffering the effects from OUR prohibition. Is this right and just?
One town. 1900 murders.
A final note, which I post here often when this subject comes up. The moment you allow the government to tell you what you can or cannot do with your own body; your very person, is the moment you have conceded your rights to the government. A government that can do this to you, can do anything to you. Legally.
All it had to do was write a law…and you let them.
Peace be with you
drivers cant even drive when NOT toked up on pot. take it from someone who was in an accident on veterans pkwy, she was sober yet she ran into me. can you imagine how much the body count will go up with people driving while toking? add the bike lanes to the body count and multiply by ten when you have a toker behind the wheel.
But Mike, THEY ARE CRIMINALS! (Federal Law). But you just love illegal aliens (also criminals), as well.
John Stossel did a great program on how we are all criminals there are so many laws on the books. This includes you. This particular law will be gone soon. When states aren’t willing to enforce a federal law the federal government will have a hard time enforcing it. This happened with alcohol during prohibition. This is also effecting our efforts against illegal immigration.
Sadly, you are right – We are all criminals. I’m one of the nicest guys you’ll meet (and have been, so this isn’t a ‘back when I was stupid’ story) and there was a time in my life when I would routinely break 4 laws before breakfast, and that’s just the ones I knew about!
I got a good one for everyone. When I was single, had a roommate that was one of the biggest stoners on the planet. When I was gone almost burned down the entire apartment complex because he fell asleep after getting stoned with dinner in the oven. If I hadn’t come back when I did, who knows what would have happened. Moved out after the lease was up because I was sick of my clothes smelling like pot even though I didn’t use. Argued about it all the time but he didn’t care Was one of the most important things in his life, no different than any other addiction. Many people in town would know him too. Would go to work stoned.
I’m not sure how long ago this was MPEABODY, but is he still a stoner? Productive member of society? Just curious!
Retired. But wouldn’t be surprised if he still smokes.
this is just one more step in the degradation our society is taking. we get the ringside seat of the freak show!
The biggest criminals on the planet, i.e. the government make the laws for us that they routinely ignore and pay no price for. “They” get away with it. I was raised to respect the golden rule, the ten commandments and for the most part that pretty much covers it. Although additional manmade laws in a functioning civiliized society are necessary, there needs to be more balance towards life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
These days this makes you extreme right-wing!