Amazon says it supports legalization of cannabis, will stop testing its employees

David clark, Global CEO of Amazon for Consumers, said in a corporate blog that his public policy team actively support the Marijuana Opportunity Elimination and Reinvestment Act of 2021 (MORE Act) in the United States. Also, that he will begin to treat the use of marijuana among his employees the same way he treats alcohol consumption: with post-incident checks and not with previous tests..

Legislation backing Jeff Bezos’ business would legalize marijuana federally, clear criminal records and invest in affected communities, Clark said.

“We hope that other businessmen will join us and that the political decision-makers will act quickly to pass this law,” he added.

“Our public policy team will actively support the Marijuana Opportunity Cancellation and Reinvestment Act of 2021 (MORE Act), federal legislation that would legalize marijuana at the federal level” (Clark)

Additionally, Clark said Amazon is adjusting its drug testing policy.

“In the past, like many employers, we have banned people from working at Amazon if they tested positive for marijuana use,” Clark said. “However, given the evolution of state laws in the United States, we have changed course,” the executive wrote.

Clark said the company would treat marijuana “the same as drinking alcohol.” In other words, we will assume that it is not a question of an accepted consumption during working hours like alcoholic beverages, but the company will no longer move forward with customary controls in the private sphere.

“We will continue to perform impairment checks at work and test all drugs and alcohol after any incident,” he said.

Following the turnaround of one of the biggest tech companies in the market, shares of cannabis companies rose on Wednesday after Clark expressed support for a federal bill to legalize marijuana and said he would no longer test for marijuana for any post not regulated by the Department of Transportation.

Shares of companies like Canopy Growth rose 1.52%, Cronos Group by 1.2%, Tilray by 1.5% and Hexo by almost 1% in pre-market trading.

“We will continue to do deterioration checks at work and we will test all drugs and alcohol after any incident” (Clark)

Clark’s message did not come out of nowhere. The company is criticized in the United States for the productivity requirements it places on its employees, especially in distribution centers.

The e-commerce giant’s change in stance is included in an article titled “Updating our Vision to be the Best Employer on Earth and the Safest Workplace on Earth” and responding to some of the criticism regarding the conditions of employment. job.

Amazon, Clark announces in the same post, is changing its system of “time off from homework” (leave task) which measures workers’ productivity by analyzing the time they spend on breaks. The show has been criticized for creating a stressful work environment.

Clark said the program “can be easily misinterpreted,” adding that the main goal “is to understand if there are any issues with the tools people use to be productive, and second only to identify employees. underperforming “.

“Seeing that an employee is not logged into software tools for long periods of time (usually more than half an hour) is a good indicator of systemic operational faults and prompts managers to engage with an employee in the aim to understand the obstacles it faces. so they can be resolved, ”he said.

“From today we will be averaging free time over a longer period to make sure there is more signal and less noise, reinforcing the original intent of the program and focusing conversations on free time on how we can help. The goal is to refocus conversations on cases where there are likely to be real operational issues to resolve. We believe this change will help ensure that the leave policy is used as intended, ”said Clark.

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