It will soon be illegal for California employers to let workers' offsite and outside-of-work marijuana use be a factor in hiring or firing decisions, according to a new state law.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed into law a bill that makes California the seventh state in the United States that does not allow employers to discriminate against workers who smoke weed "off the job and away from the workplace." The new law goes into effect Jan. 1, 2024.
The law prohibits employers from making hiring, firing or other employment decisions based on a drug test that finds "nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolites" in someone's hair or urine, which do not indicate current impairment, but that someone consumed cannabis recently, up to weeks prior, according to Assembly Bill 2188 that Assemblymember Bill Quirk (D-Hayward) sponsored.
