The Effects of Marijuana Legalization on the Workplace in 2020

Most US states have legalized medical marijuana, if not recreational use, and many protect cannabis users from employment discrimination. Even federal contractors aren't necessarily exempt from these state protections, so every employer needs to understand how marijuana legalization affects the workplace.

This 60-minute webinar reviews federal law, including the CSA, ADA and FMLA, alongside state medical and recreational cannabis laws and state laws against discrimination. You'll look at case law that is changing views on drugs at work, including implicitly protected classes and drug-free workplaces.

The session closes with common-law privacy concerns and practical tools for workplace drug and alcohol policies and drug testing systems.

• Explain how federal law treats cannabis in the workplace
• Describe state legalization and anti-discrimination protections for cannabis users
• Interpret case law on protected classes and drug-free workplaces
• Distinguish legal from illegal cannabis use in your policies
• Address common-law privacy concerns
• Update drug and alcohol policies and drug testing systems

• Federal laws and bills on cannabis
• The Controlled Substances Act (CSA)
• The ADA and FMLA
• State medical cannabis laws (MMAs)
• State recreational cannabis laws
• State laws against discrimination (LADs)
• Case law on implicitly protected classes and drug-free workplaces
• Legal vs illegal cannabis use in workplace policies
• Common-law privacy concerns
• Workplace and drug testing policy considerations
• Best practices

Conflicting federal and state cannabis laws make it hard to write policies that hold up. This session gives you an overview of the legal landscape and practical tools for handling cannabis and its users at work.

It suits HR professionals, CEOs and managers responsible for workplace policies and drug testing.

• HR
• CEO
• Managers

Deirdre Kamber Todd, Esq., is a partner with The Kamber Law Group, P.C., a next-generation law firm located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. With fifteen years of experience, Deirdre focuses her practice on labor and employment law, social media and technology law, HIPAA, and business law. Specific areas of her employment law practice include discrimination, wage and hour, restrictive covenants, business contracts, unemployment compensation, LGBT issues, labor disputes, FMLA, military leave, social media litigation, information privacy and technology, agency compliance, and medical record privacy.  

Her clients include companies, non-profits, governmental entities, and individuals. Her work includes consultative and legal services, from outsourced HR and social media services to hearings, litigation, and appellate work. She also regularly provides training and education for companies and individuals. She is licensed to practice in New York, Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Supreme Court, and she also has been admitted as an expert witness in social media and networking. 

Deirdre is the recipient of a number of awards and recognitions: she was selected as one of the “Top 20 Under 40” by the Pennsylvania Business Journal, she received the Ethics Award from the New York State Bar Association, she received a grant from the Public Justice Foundation for her pro bono work on HIV/AIDS, and she was recently nominated as one of the top twenty-five women of influence in the Lehigh Valley. 

Aside from the practice of law, she serves as the President and Diversity Chair for Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) Lehigh Valley. She currently teaches as an adjunct professor at DeSales University in the MBA Program in both the HR and Healthcare Concentrations. She has earned her Juris Doctor from Hofstra University School of Law, a distinguished master’s degree in International Studies from the University of Limerick, in Limerick, Ireland, and a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University.