Amazon is Backing a Federal Bill to Legalize Cannabis

E-commerce giant Amazon announced on Tuesday that the company is backing federal legislation of marijuana and that it is changing its drug testing policy.

The company will no longer screen some workers for cannabis and will adjust its system that measures worker productivity.

Amazon’s consumer boss Dave Clark wrote in a blog post that the company supports the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or the More Act, that was reintroduced in the House late last month.

The MORE Act would decriminalize cannabis at the federal level, expunge criminal records and invest in impacted communities.

“We hope that other employers will join us, and that policymakers will act swiftly to pass this law,” Clark wrote in the blog post.

Amazon said that it will no longer include marijuana in its drug screening program for any 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 wrote. “However, given where state laws are moving across the U.S., we’ve changed course.”

He added, “We will no longer include marijuana in our comprehensive drug screening program for any positions not regulated by the Department of Transportation, and will instead treat it the same as alcohol use. We will continue to do impairment checks on the job and will test for all drugs and alcohol after any incident.”

“And because we know that this issue is bigger than Amazon, our public policy team will be actively supporting The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2021 (MORE Act)—federal legislation that would legalize marijuana at the federal level, expunge criminal records, and invest in impacted communities. We hope that other employers will join us, and that policymakers will act swiftly to pass this law.”

Clark said Amazon is also changing its system that measures worker productivity, known as “time off task.”

The company tracks productivity rates among its warehouse workers, logging the number of packages they pick, pack and stow each hour. If an Amazon worker takes a break from scanning packages for too long, its internal systems will log it as a time off task and generate a warning, which can later lead to firings.

The measurement system was “only secondarily to identify under-performing employees,” Clark said. He wrote however that Amazon will measure time off tasks over a longer time period. “We believe this change will help ensure the Time off Task policy is used in the way it was intended.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.