It Doesn't Need To Be This Complicated

"Legal Pot Complicates Drug-Free Workplace Policies" trumpets an AP headline.
Seriously?
Has no one ever heard of alcohol?

"Businesses in Washington state, where the drug is legal, and Colorado, where it will be by January, are trying to figure out how to deal with employees who use it on their own time and then fail a drug test."

I'm gonna take a wild stab at this by saying that they could deal with it the same way they dealt with finding someone drunk on the job. The only reason this is confusing to some is that many people say that we have private property here in America, precious few understand what true private property entails.

If an employer actually exhibited full private property rights over their workplace, they could make any (voluntary) requirements of their workers. No alcohol, no drugs, heck, even no yellow rubber duckies if they wanted to. It would be the employers prerogative as to what they allowed and didn't, and a potential employee's decision as to whether or not the pay was worth it.

My employer does not and will not perform drug-tests, either random, conditional, or periodic. Did this cause me to run out and do drugs? No. Does this in any way make me want to do drugs or cause drugs to appear any more appealing? No. Does this reduce the negative connotations I associate with drug use? No.

"Police departments are especially worried. Officers take oaths to protect all laws, state and federal. (...) "Marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, so officers would not under any scenario be allowed to use marijuana," "

Hmmmm. Non-sequitur much? This is only a problem if the premise started with is that the government ("of the people and for the people") is more important than the people it was supposed to serve.

Where would this leave patients of legitimate medical marijuana usage who fail employer required drug screenings? In the same place that patients of legitimate hydrocodone usage who fail employer required drug screenings are.

This is only a crisis to those who start with the presumption that because the federal government decrees something that those it is supposed to serve disagree with, because to them it is not readily apparent that 'those it is supposed to serve' are more important than our currently devolving mob rule.