Earlier today, I appeared on Dennis House’s Sunday News Show, “This Week in Connecticut” on WTNH, to talk about the state’s new legal cannabis law and its implications for the workplace.

My thanks to Dennis for the invitation to bring this issues to employers and discuss how employers are going to need to adapt new policies.

While many of the rules regarding workplace regulation don’t go into effect until July 2022, that’s little solace to employers who will need to deal with employees who may not understand that and may start flocking to Massachusetts to make purchases starting this Thursday.

Here are the key takeaways for employers:

• Effective July 1, 2021, personal use of marijuana becomes legal in Connecticut.
• Employers can still follow existing rules regarding drug use, however, including drug testing applicants and employees for marijuana use.
• Employers can also refuse to hire employees and can fire employees for use of marijuana both in and outside the workplace.
• Effective July 1, 2022, new rules go into effect that will require some employers to have workplace policies regarding cannabis use if they want to regulate it.  I’ve recapped these rules in a prior post.

Employers might consider addressing how your particular workplace is going to address this — regardless of when the new laws for the workplace go into effect.