Last month, the Trump administration moved to federally reclassify medical marijuana that is dispensed to patients in accordance with state programs. But that doesn’t mean truck drivers, airline pilots and other federally regulated workers can now use it without being punished, the Department of Transportation (DOT) is clarifying in a new notice.
“Marijuana use is not compatible with safety-sensitive functions,” the agency said on Friday.
Medical review officers (MROs) who receive drug test results indicating cannabis consumption cannot deem them to be negative for illegal substance use, even when an employee says it was the result of state-licensed medical marijuana, DOT’s guidance said. That is the case even after the Department of Justice issued an order moving state-regulated medical cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), making such use federally legal.
“Currently, there is no instance when the MRO could verify a laboratory-confirmed marijuana positive drug test result as ‘negative’ when an employee claims the positive was caused by a State licensed marijuana product,” DOT said, explaining that even after rescheduling, medical marijuana dispensed in accordance with state law “does not constitute” a drug that has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration
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