As the use of cannabis is catching on in our society due to legalization, many consumers wonder how it could affect work performance.

All US legal cannabis states and countries where cannabis is legalized prohibit people from working under the influence of cannabis.

However, science does not have a clear position on how cannabis affects work performance, as there is a lack of enough studies on this topic.The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) says1 that cannabis negatively affects attention, memory, and learning. Therefore, someone who consumes it daily may function at a reduced intellectual level most or all the time.

NIDA cited studies that suggest specific links between cannabis use and adverse consequences at the workplace, such as an increased risk for injury or accidents.In particular, a study published in 1990 found that employees who tested positive for cannabis on a pre-employment urine drug test had 55% more work accidents, 85% more injuries, and 75% greater absenteeism than those who tested negative for it.2However, more recent studies question the negative impact of cannabis on work performance.

A study published in 2020 compiled data from 281 employees and their direct supervisors concerning cannabis use and job performance.3 Researchers reported that only one employee’s cannabis use was associated with counterproductive work behaviors. In contrast, after-work cannabis use was not related (positively or negatively) to any form of performance as rated by the user’s direct supervisor. Therefore, the authors concluded that not all forms of cannabis use harmed performance as after-work cannabis use did not relate to workplace performance dimensions.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, an American private nonprofit research organization, aimed to determine whether legislation on recreational cannabis could affect workers’ compensation.4The authors analyzed benefit receipts among adults between 40 and 62 years old. They found that workers’ annual income declines in terms of the propensity to receive benefits and benefit amounts after states legalize adult-use cannabis.

But interestingly, they also noted a complementary decline in non-traumatic workplace injury rates and the incidence of work-limiting disabilities. Researchers explained such a reduction with growth in work capacity of those aged 40 to 62. The study highlighted that after recreational cannabis is legalized, older workers can work more productively because they tend to use recreational cannabis to manage chronic pain instead of prescribed drugs.

While being under the influence of cannabis during working hours could affect work performance, using cannabis out of the workplace may not automatically negatively affect your productivity.

Millions of people worldwide use cannabis for recreational purposes and as medication to treat their chronic conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to assess whether the use of cannabis may have a negative impact in the long term.

A 2013 study found that dopamine levels were lower in people who consume more cannabis in the long term.5As dopamine plays a role in essential body functions, including movement, memory, and pleasurable reward and motivation, the findings suggest that cannabis users appear to lack motivation to work.

However, a 2016 pilot study showed improved performance for cognitive function for patients who used medical cannabis for three months.6 They demonstrated completing tasks in a shorter time without making any more errors.

The findings led some experts to believe that cannabis could help people’s focus and productivity. However, such results may vary on cannabis compositions, the form consumed, and the specific person who consumes it.

Some types of cannabis strains could potentially help specific people to focus. However, everything depends on the composition of cannabinoids and terpenes and the particular person’s feedback, as everyone responds differently to cannabis effects.

Most experts agree that working under the influence of cannabis affects performance negatively, as it can affect working motivation concentration, reaction time, and workers’ safety.

Some of the inconsistencies in the literature about cannabis impairment at the workplace may be due to differences in study design and methodologies and difficulties in conducting this research due to the legal status of adult-use cannabis.Furthermore, cannabis legalization is a phenomenon relatively new in our society. Therefore, it could take time for scientists to analyze the influence of cannabis in every single aspect of our society.Even though workers may test positive for THC, it doesn’t necessarily mean they were impaired at the time of an accident that could occur during working hours.

As we know, cannabis remains in the system for several hours. This means that if a worker had an accident at the workplace and tested positive for THC, it doesn’t mean they were under the effect of cannabis at the moment of the accident. It could have happened that they consumed cannabis on the weekend or during their days off.Consequently, making legislation over cannabis impairment at work may be complex, and many employers drug test for cannabis on their employees or even during the hiring process.

Therefore, the workers’ right to consume cannabis may be undermined by the employer’s right to test for cannabis employees for safety purposes.Understanding how effectively cannabis impacts workers’ performance and establishing a measure of impairment under cannabis influence should be one of the challenges in the near future as more and more states are to legalize medical and adult-use cannabis.

Sources:

1 https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/how-does-marijuana-use-affect-school-work-social-life

2 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2232039/

3 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1059601120917590?journalCode=gomb

4 https://www.nber.org/papers/w28471

5 https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(13)00502-7/fulltext

6 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2016.00355/ful

Written and Published by Dario Sabaghi in Weed World Magazine Issue 159

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