Amazon will stop automatically rejecting U.S. job applicants who use marijuana, proudly declaring itself a friend of Mary Jane. The company is hoping this apparent shift to cool, laidback boss will help combat public perception of Amazon as a pretty terrible employer.
“In the past, like many employers, we’ve disqualified people from working at Amazon if they tested positive for marijuana use,” Amazon’s Dave Clark wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “However, given where state laws are moving across the U.S., we’ve changed course. We will no longer include marijuana in our comprehensive drug screening program for any positions not regulated by the Department of Transportation, and will instead treat it the same as alcohol use.”
Amazon states it will still conduct impairment checks, and test employees after any accidents. Still, anyone who likes a bit of bud in their downtime will no longer be penalised for it when applying to work for the company.
This new willingness to employ those who partake of the devil’s lettuce isn’t the only adjustment to Amazon’s drug policy. The retail giant also announced that it will be actively supporting the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2021, also known as the MORE Act.
Reintroduced to Congress last week, this legislation will decriminalise marijuana use at the federal level if passed. It will also work to expunge past criminal convictions concerning cannabis, ensure people aren’t refused federal assistance because they enjoy a joint, and impose a tax on weed sales with funds supporting communities adversely affected by criminalisation.
Overall, it seems like a progressive bill that will help address social inequality while more accurately reflecting growing public opinion on the drug.
“We hope that other employers will join us, and that policymakers will act swiftly to pass this law,” wrote Clark.
Mashable has reached out to Amazon for comment.
While Amazon will no longer routinely throw out job applications from anyone who is keen on green, this doesn’t necessarily mean potential employees will be rushing to apply. The world’s fifth largest employer has a poor reputation when it comes to working conditions, with a recent Strategic Organizing Center report finding the rate of serious injury in Amazon warehouses is nearly 80 percent higher than in non-Amazon warehouses.
Amazon has been working hard to rehabilitate its image, its pivot to pot-friendliness being part of the company’s purported goal to become “Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work.” Still, revising onerous productivity expectations and raising employees’ wages would go much further toward building goodwill than simply embracing cannabis and rebranding overworked employees as “industrial athletes.”