E-commerce giant Amazon has announced in a blog post that workers and applicants who were fired or barred during marijuana screen are now eligible to work for the company.
The company has “reinstated the employment eligibility” for former workers or applicants who were fired or deferred during marijuana screenings.
It was in June that Amazon had ended for most job applicants pre-employment marijuana screenings and is now lobbying to legalize marijuana federally.
In the blog post, Amazon HR boss Beth Galetti wrote that the company has “reinstated the employment eligibility” for former employees and applicants who were fired or deferred during random or pre-employment marijuana screenings.
“Pre-employment marijuana testing has disproportionately affected communities of color by stalling job placement and, by extension, economic growth, and we believe this inequitable treatment is unacceptable,” Galetti wrote.
Amazon also said it would still do impairment checks on the job and will test for drugs and alcohol after any incident.
According to Galetti, Amazon had relaxed its marijuana standards after recognizing that a growing number of U.S. states are legalizing cannabis. The company also realized that by doing so would help it lure more job applicants in an increasingly tight labor market.
“Amazon’s pace of growth means that we are always looking to hire great new team members, and we’ve found that eliminating pre-employment testing for cannabis allows us to expand our applicant pool,” Galetti said.
It was also in June that Amazon said it supports the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, which aims to decriminalize cannabis at the federal level, expunge criminal records and invest in impacted communities.
Galetti said Amazon recently endorsed a similar bill, called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act.
Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.
