The idea of legalizing marijuana has remained as one of the notable debates within the United States with some of the states implementing policies that indeed legalize use of marijuana. However, one of the key questions to consider when embarking on the legalization process is the ultimate impacts that the drug would have on the general public especially within the work place environment (Chang, 2011). In defining the impacts associated with marijuana on the workplace, it is important to undertake an in-depth analysis of the performance levels associated with companies operating within states that legalize use of marijuana. For example, Proposition 64, adopted in the State of California, allows use of marijuana for recreational purposes but does not highlight whether employers have the mandate of preventing usage among their employees. That creates the need for having to evaluate the effects of using this drug in the workplace environment especially focusing on employee performance.
Effects of Legal Marijuana on Workplace Performance
According to a variety of sources, one of the fundamental aspects to note is that more states are becoming more and more aware of the need to legalize marijuana focusing on a wide array of factors. From that perspective, it is important to evaluate the ultimate impacts that the drug would have on employees with regard to their performance outcomes. That would help determine whether the adoption of policies that legalize of marijuana would be of any value for the employees or seek to create challenges for employers. Hollinshead (2013) argues that although medical marijuana has been considered as being very beneficial for employees using the same, employers face notable uncertainties with regard to the idea of allowing the use of marijuana within the workplace environment.
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Some of the key impacts that legalized marijuana would have in the workplace include:
Poor Leadership Capacities
In any given workplace environment, one of the key aspects that determine the performance outcomes for companies and organizations, as positive leadership will translate to enhanced performance for employees. When focusing on the legalization of marijuana, it is important to take note of the fact that leaders may also opt to use marijuana depending on their view or perception of the drug. Ultimately, this would mean that companies would experience significant challenges in meeting their expected leadership demands attributed to inabilities to project themselves as the leaders they are expected to be. Rosse, Crown, & Feldman (1991) argue that marijuana use remains a key challenge for a majority of companies and organizations with regard to their overall structure of leadership, as it creates a situation where leaders experience a reduction in their competency levels.
In their bid for projecting positive leadership, employers focus on portraying the workplace environment as a drug-free environment, as continued use of drugs would hamper leadership significantly. For the employers, this creates the need for employees to go through regular drug tests with an aim of determining whether they are using drugs as part of their approach towards increasing performance. However, in this case, the employees would argue that their use of marijuana arises from the fact that marijuana would be legalized for use as part of leisure. The effects of using drugs outside the workplace environment would stretch into the workplace environment. This means that most of the leaders may experience negativities in their approach to leadership attributed to increased use of marijuana due to its legalization in the state.
Employee Safety
Safety remains a primary concern for employers within the workplace environment, as it creates the need for employers to ensure that they set up effective strategies that would deliver positive results in meeting safety demands. For employers, this created the need for the introduction of drug-related policies within the workplace environment that would limit usage of drugs in and outside the workplace environment. However, this may change due to the legalization of marijuana considering that the drug policies implemented would be affected significantly, as this would be considered as a legal drug. Thus, this would mean that majority of employers would experience a challenge in maintaining their drug policy, as the drug policies would reflect on the illegal drugs within the individual states that the companies and organizations are operating.
Ultimately, this would mean that employees would embark on the usage of marijuana before and after their duties, which exposes them to a higher risk of workplace-related injuries considering that the employees would not be in a position to make effective decisions on safety measures. The employers would experience significant rises in lawsuits attributed to the nature of such injuries affecting employees within the workplace environment. In the long-term, this would mean that companies and organizations would experience notable limitations with regard to their profit margins attributed to the lawsuits. For policymakers, it is important to evaluate the ramifications of legalizing marijuana within states while taking into consideration the impacts that such policies would impact capacities in delivering positive results. On the other hand, policymakers ought to consider the fact that majority of the companies had implemented policies on creating a drug-free environment for their employees.
Loss of Productivity
Productivity is one of the key areas of consideration for employers in determining the effectiveness of the policies that they implement within their respective workplace environments. According to Hollinshead (2013), one of the key impacts that increased use of marijuana would have revolved around reduced performance capacities for employees, as the drug affects their ability to perform effectively. Allowing use of marijuana in the workplace means that employers are actually going back on their policies on drug use among their employees. Most of the companies operating especially within the United States expose their employees to mandatory drug tests that seek to determine whether the employers are users of specific drugs or illicit substances that may impact on their performance.
According to a report on the business environment in California, one of the key challenges that employers encounter when dealing with their employees is the inability to use drug tests as key instruments in determining performance and productivity. That results from a situation where the state has allowed the use of marijuana for leisure purposes, thus, meaning that the employees have the right to use marijuana within their leisure time. Ultimately, this has resulted in a situation where most of the companies have experienced a significant loss in employee productivity attributed to increased usage of drugs specifically marijuana. In that view, this means that the idea of allowing legalized marijuana would mean that employers would experience significant challenges when trying to improve the performance capacities of their employees.
Absenteeism
Another key challenge that would arise due to a usage of legalized marijuana is absenteeism attributed to the fact that employees using this drug may find themselves experiencing negative effects. The underlying effects of marijuana include disorientation, confusion, and addiction among users, thus, exposing users to reduced occupational functionality (Rendall, 2012). However, it is important to take note of the fact that the effects may vary from one user to another. In some cases, this would mean that drug users may find themselves in a position where they are not in a position to control their performance especially focusing on the workplace environment. The employees may experience situations where it becomes difficult for them to function without using marijuana thereby affecting their abilities to concentrate while in the workplace. In the long-term, this would mean that employees would experience increased cases of absenteeism, which may have a major impact on the performance outcomes of their respective workplaces.
Els, Amin, & Straube (2016) identify a key challenge associated with the use of legalized marijuana, as it seeks to expose users to high risks of addiction, thus, affecting their concentration levels by approximately 50% while in their respective workplaces. In most cases, this would mean that the employees would feel that they do not belong within the workplace environments thereby creating a high possibility for employees to evade their workplaces. Ultimately, this would mean that a company or organization would experience a significant challenge in meeting its set out goals and objectives. For the employers that would mean that the legalization of marijuana would impact on its capacities to deliver positive results attributed to increased cases of absenteeism among individual employees.
Delayed Decision-Making
Increased usage of marijuana impairs one’s decision-making skills considering that an individual experiences significant challenges focusing on brain functionality. In the workplace environment, that would mean that companies and organizations would experience significant delays in the decision-making processes. Decision-making is one of the key areas of a business environment that seek to determine whether a company or organization maintains that positive approach in meeting its set demands. That would arise from two main factors associated with the idea of using marijuana in the workplace environment. Firstly, increased cases of absenteeism would mean that the decision-making processes may delay considering that employees expected to make specific decisions may be absent from their respective workplace environments (Pacula, Kilmer, Wagenaar, Chaloupka, & Caulkins, 2014). In cases where the decisions are expected promptly, that would mean that the company or organization would experience a significant challenge in meeting its set out goals resulting from increased use of marijuana.
Although employers may seek to deal with the issue of absenteeism associated with usage of marijuana based on the implementation of relevant policies, this challenge may arise based on the negative impacts that employees encounter due to increased usage of the drug. Secondly, delayed decision-making would arise from a situation where it is difficult for employees to make decisions considering that they may encounter major effects of marijuana usage. As indicated earlier, one of the key impacts of using this drug is that a user experiences significant disorientation especially immediately after use. In the same way, one must anticipate that employees would experience major challenges in the decision-making processes immediately after using marijuana based on the effects of the drug. That means that usage of marijuana exposes companies and organizations to situations where it becomes challenging for them to determine or establish positive platforms for decision-making.
Diminished Concentration
While in the workplace environment, one of the key expectations for employees is that they must show exemplary abilities to concentrate while in the workplace environment. That is part of ensuring that each employee is able to the set goals and objectives as part of his or her roles and responsibilities. However, allowing employees to use marijuana without due consideration of their roles and responsibilities creates a situation where the employees would experience significant challenges in their abilities to concentrate. Ultimately, this would mean that the employees would not be in a position to pay any form of attention towards their roles and responsibilities as part of meeting the demands of the company or organization.
From an employer perspective, this would mean that the employees would be in any form to meet the targets considering that most of the time they will not concentrate on what is expected of them. In some case, this would result in conflicts within the workplace environments attributed to the significant lack of concentration capacities among employees using marijuana (Gunnlaugsson & Galliher, 2010). Although employers may find themselves in positive positions allowing them to identify employees using drugs and other illicit substances, it would be difficult in dealing with the situation considering that marijuana would be legalized. That means that employees may opt to use marijuana away from the workplace environment due to the legalization of the drug considering that it would be legalized for use as part of leisure. In the long-term, efforts by employers to deal with usage of marijuana in the workplace would not achieve positive results attributed to the legalization of the drug.
How to Deal with the Issues
From the analysis, presented above, it is evident that the idea of legalizing marijuana has a major impact on the workplace, as it seeks to affect performance outcomes for employers within their respective workplace environment. In that view, it is important to take note of the strategies that employers must be willing to adopt as part of delivering positive results regardless of the legalization of marijuana. Firstly, employers would need to highlight the importance of leaning to the drug-free policies within the workplace environments as part of ensuring that employees do not use any form of drugs including marijuana (Anderson, 2017). Although the state may adopt policies on a wide array of issues, employers must be willing to take control of their respective workplace environments.
That means that employers must emphasize the need for their employees to avoid usage of such drugs, as this may result in termination of employment within their respective workplace environments. For the employers, the key aspect of focus is ensuring that they create that positive approach towards that they achieve the best possible results regardless of the policies created at the state level. The second strategy would involve engagement in lobbies to ensure that although policymakers would implement such policies on the legalization of marijuana, they would institute measures on business environment protection (Shahandeh, 2015). For example, policymakers may highlight the need for employees to follow the laid down rules and regulations governing their individual workplace environments. That means that the implementation of the policy on the legalization of marijuana does not limit employers from conducting regular drug tests on their employees as part of determining their drug usage levels.
For the employees, that would mean that although marijuana would be legalized, it does not give them the leeway allowing them to use or take marijuana as part of their leisure, as this would impact on their performance in the workplace environment. The last strategy would involve taking employees on training and development programs that would help highlight the underlying impacts associated with continued use of drugs including marijuana (Truxillo, Cadiz, Bauer, & Erdogan, 2013). Although some of the states may legalize usage of marijuana, the key element of focus for the employers would be the idea that other states and countries consider this as illegal attributed to the functionality impacts of the drugs. The training and development programs would seek to evaluate such impacts on the employees, which would pave the way for them to make effective decisions on the usage of drugs as part of their leisure activity. However, the key focus of this strategy is ensuring that employees understand that usage of drugs exposes them to health risks.
Conclusion
In summary, the question of whether to legalize marijuana has created notable debates not only in the United States with the key focus being the impacts of the drug on performance capacities for the users. However, one of the key areas that have raised concern is the impact that the drug would have on the workplace environment considering that this drug tends to project notable effects for the individual users. Some of the impacts identified within these report include poor leadership capacities, employee safety, loss of productivity, absenteeism, delayed decision-making, and diminished concentration. From that perspective, it is important to evaluate ways in which employers would be able to deal with such challenges arising within the workplace environment due to the legalization of marijuana including placing emphasis on the idea of a drug-free workplace environment.
References
Anderson, R. W. (2017). Marijuana Prohibition and Rent Seeking. Homo Oeconomicus, 34 (1), 33-46.
Chang, K. (2011). High-Risk Employment: The Management Headache Over Medical Marijuana. Journal of Workplace Safety, 18 (1), 1-15.
Els, C., Amin, A., & Straube, S. (2016). Marijuana and the Workplace. Canadian Journal of Addiction, 7 (4), 5-7.
Gunnlaugsson, H., & Galliher, J. F. (2010). Drug globalization: Eventual legalization of beer in Iceland and marihuana decriminalization in the USA. Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, 11 (2), 119-134.
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