Probably none. The same thing that happened in Colorado. Smaller companies already don't care, and larger ones will always defer to federal law.

>I also wonder what a Trump vs Clinton Presidency would mean for the enforcement of federal drug laws in states that have legalized marijuana. Would they be as hands-off as the Obama administration has been?

It could be disastrous if Trump wins. Chris Christie has been a moral crusader against marijuana for his entire term as governor, and a potential Christie attorney general's office could come down hard on states.

Unlike the power to regulate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, the power to enact laws enabling effective regulation of interstate commerce can only be exercised in conjunction with congressional regulation of an interstate market, and it extends only to those measures necessary to make the interstate regulation effective. As Lopez itself states, and the Court affirms today, Congress may regulate noneconomic intrastate activities only where the failure to do so "could… undercut" its regulation of interstate commerce.... This is not a power that threatens to obliterate the line between "what is truly national and what is truly local."

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich

The key term in the decision is "the likelihood that the high demand in the interstate market will draw such marijuana into that market" - this is as true of business-produced marijuana as it is of home-produced marijuana, no?

I assume I'm misreading the scope here, because investors in marijuana businesses have to have taken this into account when doing due diligence, not just relied on the Obama administration's lack of enforcement, right? Or is the entire industry built on shaky legal ground?

Estoppel is a category of legal principles that basically allow a court to refuse to hear a claim or defense if the claimant or respondent (in this case, the government), through affirmative action or gross inaction, did something such that the law would deem it especially unfair (often the test is "unconscionable") to permit the claimant or respondent the benefit of a claim or defense.

The classic example is promissory estoppel.

The biggest problem is that most forms of estoppel are generally not permitted in criminal matters, or much more difficult to convince a court to accept.

In this case, the basis for estoppel would be that various regulators and the DoJ have made statements that they would refrain from prosecuting certain offenses related to marijuana commerce if the acts were permitted legally under state law.

However, as far as I know, these statements

1) never pronounced the behavior legal under federal law, but merely provided an outline for how regulators and prosecutors would use their prosecutorial discretion;

2) were generally limited to medical marijuana;

3) were otherwise heavily hedged.

For these and other reasons I don't think any major financial institutions have invested in the marijuana industry. Usually it's local, individual investors providing financing, if any.

As the law is understood today few lawyers would expect to successfully defend a federal prosecution. At the margins, given all the context maybe many judges would be more likely to favor a defendant, such as imposing unusually light sentences or being unusually deferential to other defenses. But nobody should harbor the illusion that any aspect of the state-sanctioned marijuana industry, medical or recreational, is legal under federal law.

So says you. But have you been appointed to the US Supreme Court? If so, your opinion hardly matters.

The local group won out, and the parent corp abandoned the policy of testing their California employees.

Whether or not the reasons I was given were bogus or not, I would be in no way surprised if my scenario happened at other companies as well.

It seems you were mislead, according to https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/Card_Prod_Sec...:

Q 1 December 2013 – Drug testing is not required in the PCI Card Production Security Requirements. Is this an oversight?

A No, PCI does not require drug testing due to the wide variances in country laws governing where or when drug testing is allowed. However, that does not preclude card vendors from requiring drug testing wherever and whenever they deem necessary.

I wasn't able to find anything relating to HIPAA, but I've worked around HIPAA since before it was passed and your post is literally the first time I've ever heard that claim. Not saying you're wrong, just that this is a new one to me.

I believe you get some kind of tax break by drug testing.

Urine tests are usually easy to pass, as it's likely an invasion of your privacy as a non-felon to watch you urinate, therefore, it is a trivial matter to have synthetic urine (bottle warmed in your inner-thigh/groin to body temperature) ready to squirt into the cup, as well as into the toilet. If I recall, it was about $25 to purchase a bottle.

Hair tests required you to purchase $30 bottles of special shampoo that would strip away anything (leaving your hair feeling like straw), provided you follow the directions on the box, which was to scrub like crazy for 15 minutes. You'd get a good 3-4 hours of clean hair to attend the lab, which is more than enough time for most people.

I now work at a (incubating) canadian medical marijuana startup, so I no longer worry about such things, but I'm sure I'll be telling the grandkids about the measures people took during prohibition eventually.

Every employer I have ever had did pre-employment drug screening. A few likely companies have even done pre-interview screening. No one has ever done anything at all drug related after the initial hire date.

It's almost like they're just checking a box on an HR form, and no one actually cares.

What an absolutely laughable policy. You'd have to fire half of bloody London if they tested for charlie.

I'd massively kick off at HR for this if I couldn't hire someone for this reason.

I don't know if this is current.

Very rare even in giant corps from my POV

One popular example is the NFL where they contend that because they engage in interstate commerce and it's still illegal at the federal level, they will continue to enforce their ban on its use.

A lot of banks were afraid to even do business with sellers in states where it's legal for fear of fines or sanctions from government agencies.

Edit - Obama directed the justice department to not prosecute entities in states where it's legal. But it's totally possible a republican president may take the opposite approach.

Chances are everything will continue just like usual.

Not that I don't put it past them.

I was listening to the Bill Burr podcast and he was talking about rumors of pharmaceutical companies planning to try and re-demonize marijuana in states where it has become legal to regain what they perceive as lost revenue due to a decline in prescriptions. All that lobby money with a businessman in the White House, makes me wonder how it'll all work out.

That's something that I know quite a few of us here in Colorado wonder; my friend who owns an upscale dispensary doesn't think anything will change but I'm not so certain. Esp. if the rumors that Trump approach various Republicans with the idea that as Vice-President they'd be calling all the shots. Mike Pence is kind of a wild-card, I really don't know what his stance is on legal mj but the little I have read doesn't inspire confidence that he'll take a reasonable approach to this.

1. http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2016/jul/28/...

If that's what you meant, it sounds like a bit if a logical stretch.

I think that stronger statement is questionable for a few reasons:

(1) It ignores the subjective element of your assessment regarding which of Pence's positions are reasonable or not reasonable. I very much doubt everyone on Hacker News would consider all of your strongly held beliefs rational, and vice versa. But that should be the starting point of our discussions, not the end of them.

(2) You gave some examples of Pence's conclusions which you consider absurd, but you didn't give clear evidence that his reasoning processes are flawed that he's "not a person to be reasoned with". For example, if you could point to some discussions where he was unable or unwilling to adhere to basic, simple rules of logic, that would bolster your case.

I don't personally care about employees doing drugs unless they are operating heavy machinery or are a similar risk to others, but lots of traditional management types feel it is right to fire clerical workers for smoking weed on the weekends.

Nope. Independent contractors such as myself are generally free of such things unless it's for a gov't position, most larger companies will still test if they do any business outside of the state, and big companies solely inside the state will likely keep up the testing anyways. Mom and pop? They're probably smoking with the employees.

Under Prop 64: "Employers can still enforce their own drug policies, including firing workers who test positive for weed."

Which is as it should be, a business owner ought to be able to make decisions about what employees to hire or retain.

But will we see being a marijuana user becoming a protected class against which you can't discriminate?

Trump is absolutely going to do everything he can to force states who have legalized it, to comply with federal law.

On the other hand, you degrade respect for the law when so many people are against its enforcement.

Were I Trump I would propose the end of federal drug laws other than trafficking. Possession is something the states can regulate if they wish, and anyway federal possession statutes are unconstitutional. On a practical level they're grossly unfair and give state prosecutors a lot of extra power, because people can always be threatened with prosecution under federal laws, which carry much tougher sentences in most cases.

But Trump can propose anything he wants. The action has to come from Congress, ultimately.

If you don't want a job don't take the job. Otherwise you do it to the best of your ability.