At the September general election there will be a referendum offering voters the choice to support the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill.
Amanda Douglas is a partner at Wynn Williams Lawyers who specialises in employment and health & safety. She will answer queries on how your organisation's drug and alcohol policies might have to change should recreational cannabis use be legalised.
OK, it's time to post your questions here. It would be great to have two or three questions posted by, say, 9.15 tomorrow. More questions always arise during the session, of course.
Looking at the 400+ responses to the recent Safeguard survey on legalisation, I suspect many H&S people fear that legalisation of cannabis will lead to an increase in the number of workers turning up for work impaired.
Is there any evidence this would occur?
FWIW, I will be voting in favour of the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill, which puts me in the minority of the Safeguard survey respondents!
Experts in health and science far cleverer than me have concluded the Bill is the best way forward, and certainly the current 'war on drugs' regime has failed for decades.
(If there was evidence that legalisation would result in a higher risk of injury incidents in the workplace, I would think again. But to my knowledge there isn't any.)
The culture of the workplace must be an important factor. Drug testing, particularly random testing, has always struck me as undermining of the trust necessary for a high performance workplace.
Amanda, many thanks for your time and expertise this morning, it's been a fascinating discussion and one that always provokes much debate.
And thanks to everyone who submitted questions and comments!