Safety summit speaker talks drugs, medical marijuana

COLUMBUS, Ohio—An Ohio chemical dependency counselor had a message about medical marijuana for manufacturing officials at the Environmental Health and Safety Summit: "We are definitely headed into uncharted territory."

In Ohio, you can't smoke medical marijuana, but you can vape. And Ruth Bowdish said employees could be vaping in your factory right now, using either medical pot or recreational weed, and you won't even know it.

"A lot of times when we think about marijuana, especially on the job, we also associate it with that very strong and skunky odor. And when I do reasonable suspicion training for employers, one of the things that I tell them to look for is that odor," Bowdish said. "Well, sorry, guys, the game has changed because now the electronic or liquid marijuana, you can get it in a variety of flavors."

The old days are over—both in today's pot with much higher THC and the way it's smoked.

"Instead, you really have to start to pay more attention to behavior on the job and some of the physical signs and symptoms of marijuana. Because just the odor of it, if you see someone with a joint, you kind of know that they're using. If you see someone with an electronic cigarette, how are you going know? That's the problem," she said.

Right now, Ohio law allows employers to ban all marijuana from the workplace, including medical, through company policy.

"Zero tolerance can really mean zero tolerance," said Bowdish, whose counseling practice is in Austintown, Ohio. She recommends giving workers who test positive for drugs one second chance, instead of immediate firing.

However, medical marijuana rules vary from state to state, she said.

"And because this is a hot-button issue, things are changing," Bowdish said.

The Environmental Health and Safety Summit, held July 17-18 in Columbus, was sponsored by the Manufacturers Association for Plastics Processors, the American Mold Builders Association and the Association for Rubber Products Manufacturers, all based in Indianapolis.

The drug epidemic is hitting the workplace.

"Seventy-five percent of habitual drug abusers are on the job. They're not homeless, they're not underneath the bridge, they're coming to work every single day, and that's according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics," Bowdish said.

She added that the Food and Drug Administration's 1997 decision to allow drug makers to advertise directly to consumers was a landmark change that also has contributed to the legal marijuana boom today.

"As soon as we started seeing these advertisements, drug use, substance use, prescription drugs, it became the norm," Bowdish said.

Today, seven out 10 Americans are taking some type of prescription drug, she said. "An increase in advertising has made us apathetic to drug use."

Social media paved the way for us to hear about herbal remedies and supplements and also led to people self-diagnosing their illnesses.

"Marijuana is the most abused drug in America," Bowdish said. "That shouldn't be a shock to anybody. But look at No. 2: Prescriptions are the second-most abused drugs in America."

Now there's a pill for everything. Prescription use shot up 85 percent from 1997 to 2016, she said. People love instant gratification.

"Everything that we want, we want it now. And this is America right now. So it's no wonder that we're looking at pills for the answer. That we're looking at substances for the answer," Bowdish said.

Regardless of your personal opinion of marijuana, there are still lots of unanswered questions when it comes to safety in the workplace, she said.

"We don't know enough about it. We don't have the studies to back up how much it's affecting us on the job. We don't know how long it's going to impair us. We don't have that information. And so, without that information, we're finding ourselves in problems."