Nurses Who Smoke Marijuana

Nurses Recovery

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I am currently taking my prerequisites for Nursing. I know two nurses, one is a friend of my mothers and she is a Nurse Practitioner and my boyfriend's mother is a charge nurse in the ICU. Both of them smoke Marijuana (occasionally) and they haven't had any issues with their career. Although I have seen a thread on allnurses talking about a woman being fired from her job because she tested positive for Marijuana during a random drug test at work. So my question is, why do some people get FIRED for smoking marijuana but some don't and continue to advance in their career with no issues? Is it just because they didn't get caught through drug testing? Do Nurses know when their employers will be giving drug tests or how often?

Thanks!

Specializes in Medical-Surgical, Emergency.

Just have to bump this again. If you're done with it, carry on.

It is bewildering that marijuana is talked about as if it's a mind-altering substance in the same caliber as LSD or psilocybin. I do not think anyone so far has argued that marijuana, where legal by state and federal law for recreational or medical use, then be ratified by the BON to allow nurses to blaze up right before a long shift in the exact same way that alcohol which is legal at state and federal levels for just recreational use would anyone ever think, oh that means I can do a couple tequila shots before we run this code. the effects that THC and ETOH have on an individual are so drastically different. It's like hm, should I give clonazepam for this acute anxiety attack or should I slam em with 10 of haldol and follow it up with some ketamine? Do you want your pt moderately relaxed or dissociated and sedated? I totally get the state

I really think all I can say is, when that day comes and the only thing between those who wish to do so and doing it is the BON, it is time for serious petitioning, research, and action.

i want to see it legal for recreational and medicinal in all 50. And as public health advocates, it's something we can get behind. Drug and violence that occur around marijuana is irrelevant to the substance in and of itself. See prohibition.

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What makes this thread sad to me is the fact that we as nurses are supposed to rely on evidence based practice when making decisions yet a majority of us ignore mountains of evidence about the harmless nature of marijuana yet some of you will happily go and grab drinks after work. Legality does not nor has ever meant moral and/or factual.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.

Marijuana as harmless? Michigan has suffered an extra 1,600 traffic deaths following the legalization of medical marijuana and a huge increase in the DUI arrests. Now, how many of these are attributable to MJ is not clear but stats changed with legalization. Coincidence? No way. This stuff they are selling now is extremely potent, now the mellow stuff we smoked decades ago. The medical intent is so abused that I could get it for a pimple. A handful of MD's are prescribing thousands of "prescriptions." Also check out traffic deaths in Colorado post-legalization. Not encouraging. There are very limited medical indications for MJ and those patients are usually too sick to drive. I guess if it keeps people on MJ instead of heroin that is a win...but not when they're driving.

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Correlation does not equal causation. Alcohol has killed millions as well as cigarettes yet they are legal. You have to be consistent with your judgements on matters such as this or else your credibility lacks.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.

Cigarettes and alcohol might not ever be legalized today because of deaths, medical and societal costs, etc. The NIH has probably conducted the most exhaustive research on MJ that I have been able to find. You will see how there is no linear relationship between blood levels and psychomotor performance so even establishing safe driving limits is futile. However, some countries in Europe have established ranges for DUI purposes.

We have a women in my town who is being crucified for 1 ngm. They want to add DUI charges and she has already suffered the loss of her mother in the accident. It is insane to willy-nilly call a potent mind altering substance safe enough to legalize and yet establish no parameters. I worked in peer assistance

worked in peer assistance with nurse-addicts for many years and am not moralizing here. I did a lot of pot in the day and have tried the medical stuff just to see how strong it is. I do not want it criminalized. I now work with kids in family court and I can tell you that there are families that will pay for pot but not for food for their kids. Yes, they are also paying for other drugs but pot is in the mixture because virtually everyone in the court systems tests positive for MJ because it's as available as toilet paper. Check out its effect on the adolescent brain and come back and tell me how harmless it is.

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That's an adolescent. Sugar probably does more harm than marijuana through adolescence. Unfortunately when it comes to freedom of autonomy safety is not a guarantee. While the NIH has done extensive research you cannot have a comparing voice on the matter because research on marijuana is still prohibited for private companies as it's still a schedule 1 narcotic and thus cannot be effectively studied. Go look at European research to truly find effective and thorough research on marijuana. Until it's removed from schedule 1 the NIH is biased and it's credibility is untested therefore invalid until they lift their silly little bans. Would you believe someone's opinion if they had a ban on researching that opinion yourself? Also drug screens typically have a cutoff of 25 ngm, any lower won't hold up in court. Gas spectrometers go as low as 15 ngm

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True that on the non-alcoholic DUI charges.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
Paco5293 said:
That's an adolescent. Sugar probably does more harm than marijuana through adolescence. Unfortunately when it comes to freedom of autonomy safety is not a guarantee. While the NIH has done extensive research you cannot have a comparing voice on the matter because research on marijuana is still prohibited for private companies as it's still a schedule 1 narcotic and thus cannot be effectively studied. Go look at European research to truly find effective and thorough research on marijuana. Until it's removed from schedule 1 the NIH is biased and it's credibility is untested therefore invalid until they lift their silly little bans. Would you believe someone's opinion if they had a ban on researching that opinion yourself? Also drug screens typically have a cutoff of 25 ngm, any lower won't hold up in court. Gas spectrometers go as low as 15 ngm

NIH didn't make up this stupid law.

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Never said they did, but they are an extension of the government who did and are funded at the tune of 30 billion dollars.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
Paco5293 said:
Never said they did, but they are an extension of the government who did and are funded at the tune of 30 billion dollars.

And these two factors make their research invalid?

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Inherent bias invalidates most claims. Conflictsof interest does not propagate fair judgements.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.

Oh good grief. You think Europe is free of corporate influence and greed? If that's your argument, then you'd have to throw away the results of all research since there us no such thing as pure research for it's own sake.

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