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Should local businesses stop pre-employment marijuana drug testing?

Posted at 12:20 AM, May 06, 2018
and last updated 2018-05-07 08:18:02-04

NAPLES, Fla., -- Florida medical marijuana doctors are weighing in on Caesers Entertainment decision to drop pre-employment drug testing for marijuana. They say Florida needs to follow their footsteps. 

"There really isn't a reason to screen them and to disallow them from being unemployed," said Dr. Mark Hashim of The Herbal Clinic. 

Hashim explains the public has a misconception when it comes to marijuana, often relating it to other drugs and alcohol. But he says the medicine actually enhances someones performance. 

“They’ll probably working better. They’ll probably a better employee. So there really isn’t a reason to screen them," said Hashim. 

Other doctors like Nick Garulay, CEO of My Florida Green, say the results of medical marijuana have been impressive. 

"This is a plant that grows out of the ground that no one has ever overdosed and died from in the 10,000 years it’s been used.”

One of his clients, Genevieve Dube, who suffered from a degenerative spinal disease that put her in a wheelchair for years before she switched to cannabis treatment. 

"The whole seven years I was in the chair or the walker even while I was on the [opioid] management," said Dube. "[Without medical cannabis] I would still be on pain management if I was lucky… if I wasn’t lucky I would be dead.” 

It's results like that, that reassure Garulay, businesses drug testing for cannabis is unnecessary. 

“Someone shows up that used marijuana the night before is going to show up a lot brighter and sharper.”