Amazon announced plans to supports the federal legalization of marijuana and will no longer be testing for the drug in its pre-employment drug tests.
Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s worldwide consumer division, wrote that evolving state laws on marijuana mean that the drug will now be treated the same as alcohol.
“We hope that other employers will join us and that policymakers will act swiftly to pass this law,” he said in a statement.
The company will also no longer include marijuana in drug tests for positions not regulated by the Department of Transportation.
“In the past, like many employers, we’ve disqualified people from working at Amazon if they tested positive for marijuana use,” Clark said. “However, given where state laws are moving across the US, we’ve changed course.”
The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act (MORE Act) passed in the House of Representatives in December 2020 end criminal penalties for anyone who sells cannabis in states where it’s legal. The act would also decriminalize the use of cannabis nationwide and formally allow states to work out how they would establish commercial marijuana sales.
“Since I introduced the MORE Act last Congress, numerous states across the nation, including my home state of New York, have moved to legalize marijuana,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said in a statement on Friday. “Our federal laws must keep up with this pace.”
The bill’s House co-sponsors include Cannabis Caucus co-Chairs Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Barbara Lee (D-CA), Judiciary Crime Subcommittee Chairwoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez (D-NY).
