A Colorado House committee on Thursday defeated a bill that was originally meant to provide protection for workers who use marijuana off the job and allow medical cannabis patients to use their medicine at work—even after significantly scaling the legislation back to remove those protections altogether. At the hearing before the House Business Affairs & Labor Committee, the legislation sponsored by Rep. Edie Hooton (D) was significantly watered down with an amendment adopted by the panel that replaced all of its language with provisions to merely form a task force to explore marijuana employment challenges. The committee ultimately rejected the amended bill in a 1-12 vote. Under the revised legislation, a 15-member task force would have been created under the state Division of Labor and Employment that would convene in 2023 to study marijuana employment policies, with a report due by the year’s end. The revised measure “brings together stakeholders impacted by current workplace practices favoring medical marijuana patients to find solutions and make recommendations for potential legislation in the absence of reliable testing,” Hooton said in her opening remarks.
Kyle Jaeger, Marijuana Moment, 03/25/2022 08:30:00