Weed

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I was just wondering as a student are they testing you for nicotine? And If the weed is legal in your state are you risking losing ur license if shows that you are thc possitive?

Not this tiresome topic again. As long as weed is illegal on the Federal level you will get fired; you will get kicked out of school.

Like another poster, I'm in Colorado and even though I can walk into a store and buy THC soda or candy or skunky dank pot, if I test positive I will get kicked out of my ADN program- and we are tested randomly every semester.

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13 hours ago, NICU Guy said:

How is it different than any other hospital in the country? They test you when they hire you. As long as you don't come to work high or screw up and have to be drug tested, you wont be caught.

You are not saying that they will not fire you for coming up positive.

I didn't "screw up." I was injured on the job. My boss told me to go home, but said "but I am required to send you to employee health first." Guess what happened at employee health? Yes, a drug screen. I was clean, so no problem.

You never know when an incident not involving any fault of your own could result in a required drug screen: narc counts off, a patient injury, or other unforeseen incident. If you use, there is always a chance that you could end up being tested. You might get lucky and never get busted, or you might end up being sent for a screen for one of many reasons that have nothing to do with you seeming impaired.

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Specializes in Neuro.

When I attended orientation, students were handed forms to go drug test. It was then the nursing director for the school also announced that even if a student had a medical marijuana card, if they tested positive, they'd still be dropped from the program. A few people were dropped after those 3 days for that reason.

Think others are right, until is becomes federal law, don't really have a chance of being able to use THC in NS or as a nurse, even if the feds legalized it--it'll still be up to the employer & I'd guess most of them would opt out of THC use for their staff.

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On 1/28/2019 at 7:04 PM, MiladyMalarkey said:

When I attended orientation, students were handed forms to go drug test. It was then the nursing director for the school also announced that even if a student had a medical marijuana card, if they tested positive, they'd still be dropped from the program. A few people were dropped after those 3 days for that reason.

So, if your doctor prescribes it to you, you can't be dropped from school. You're taking your medication that your doctor prescribed to you, for a reason. That sounds like horrible nurses teaching at that school.

Seriously, they'll let someone with an opioid prescription through but not for a form of THC?

It's incredible what people let their schools get away with.

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2 hours ago, tonyl1234 said:

So, if your doctor prescribes it to you, you can't be dropped from school. You're taking your medication that your doctor prescribed to you, for a reason. That sounds like horrible nurses teaching at that school.

Seriously, they'll let someone with an opioid prescription through but not for a form of THC?

It's incredible what people let their schools get away with.

Not just schools. Jobs. How do you people not get this? I used a 10mg THC gummy for my horrible knee once in a while and it worked better than an NSAID or opiod, but I can't use them now that I'm in RN school.

It's really quite simple- as long as it's illegal at a federal level, you will get fired; you will get kicked out of school.

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What's your state's BON say about medically prescribed THC in nursing? What are your state's laws about medically prescribed THC? You're not protected under federal laws, but state laws take priority. A lot of states where it's legal, you cannot be fired or punished for using it outside of work as long as you have a valid prescription for it. It's actually illegal to be punished in those states. The only real exception that they give is if you're under the influence of that drug while you're there.

You're on a prescription for a reason, you cannot just be arbitrarily kicked out of school because you take your medicine how it was prescribed. They have to follow what your state's laws are. If your state says that you can't be punished, you can't be punished.

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Federal law > State Law.

That's why the South was forced to integrate schools, as one example. It's not fair and it's not right, but as long as the federal govt. classifies weed the same schedule as heroin, many of us going into the medical field can't use it.

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I'm in Washington. My nursing program does not test for weed themselves; however, the clinical locations do, and if you test positive, you are unable to complete clinicals and therefore are no longer in the program, though I'm not sure if they directly kick you out. The hospitals all test for it and will fire people for having it in their system.

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9 hours ago, tonyl1234 said:

What's your state's BON say about medically prescribed THC in nursing? What are your state's laws about medically prescribed THC? You're not protected under federal laws, but state laws take priority. A lot of states where it's legal, you cannot be fired or punished for using it outside of work as long as you have a valid prescription for it. It's actually illegal to be punished in those states. The only real exception that they give is if you're under the influence of that drug while you're there.

You're on a prescription for a reason, you cannot just be arbitrarily kicked out of school because you take your medicine how it was prescribed. They have to follow what your state's laws are. If your state says that you can't be punished, you can't be punished.

Which states are these? All of the nursing schools in Colorado will not allow students who test positive for THC to attend. Schools take federal funds for students (student loans, grants, etc.), so I believe they have to abide by federal law.

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Specializes in Neuro.
On 1/30/2019 at 6:09 PM, tonyl1234 said:

So, if your doctor prescribes it to you, you can't be dropped from school. You're taking your medication that your doctor prescribed to you, for a reason. That sounds like horrible nurses teaching at that school.

Seriously, they'll let someone with an opioid prescription through but not for a form of THC?

It's incredible what people let their schools get away with.

Medical marijuana cards, even for medicinal reasons just aren't accepted in my state for employers or educational institutions, perhaps if you had cancer.....maybe you'd have a fight, but may still lose.

I'm not arguing the rightness or wrongness of this, but at the time, I was in a room full of mostly 20-somethings for the most part, the chances that some of them really needed medicinal marijuana is probably a joke-my opinion. In my state, honestly, anyone can get a medical MJ card. Here PCP's will almost never prescribe it, you have to go to the weed doctor, yes, I'm not kidding, that is some of the crazy practice names they list their offices under in the back of a paper with classified ads, escort ads, methadone clinics ads etc. It's pretty much a mill for giving out cards both for cause and also for ridiculous cause, doc makes a quick $300 for prescribing it for the 19-year-old who has back pain because he is overweight...that is a legit reason one was given. Where I worked previously gave me first hand knowledge in some of the craziness behind the business and laws of it all. There are worse things than THC out there IMHO, but, until they can figure out how to screen usage so say a nurse doesn't come high to work, yes, I can see why there is zero tolerance.

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Specializes in Neuro.
On 1/31/2019 at 10:28 AM, tonyl1234 said:

What's your state's BON say about medically prescribed THC in nursing? What are your state's laws about medically prescribed THC? You're not protected under federal laws, but state laws take priority. A lot of states where it's legal, you cannot be fired or punished for using it outside of work as long as you have a valid prescription for it. It's actually illegal to be punished in those states. The only real exception that they give is if you're under the influence of that drug while you're there.

You're on a prescription for a reason, you cannot just be arbitrarily kicked out of school because you take your medicine how it was prescribed. They have to follow what your state's laws are. If your state says that you can't be punished, you can't be punished.

You have to remember state schools likely still receive federal funding, so it would make sense that they abide by federal law. Medical institutions may also receive federal funding, so yes, they too would also follow federal law.

Further, a drug like THC is hard to prove when exact usage was because it can stay in your system for weeks. Sure, you can do comparison levels to see if THC blood levels are dropping, but as an employer, school site, clinical site, do you think they will take the extra time & money to do that? One can sit and argue the ethics of it all and I do believe in future things may change, but still haven't changed that much.

Also if federal is involved in anything state...state law does not take priority in many cases, they'd risk losing their fed funding. I worked for county law enforcement, state funded, may have gotten federal funding too, regardless, zero tolerance either way. I've actually never heard of any medical, clinical or educational institutions allowing THC use even with prescription. My knowledge is limited of course so I do not profess to know a good deal about it, just haven't heard it ever being accepted.

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State law actually takes priority in almost every case. It's actually specifically written into a ton of federal laws. If a state wants to be more strict, then it can, no questions asked. If a state wants to be less strict, it can, but there's things that have to be understood. While recreational marijuana is legal in Colorado, if someone smoked there on vacation, they're fine for as long as they're in Colorado. But if they go back to Kansas and test positive from when they were in Colorado, they're still breaking Kansas's law by being positive. But then going opposite on something that is federally legal, a dry city can arrest you for drinking in the city, but they can't arrest you for drinking in a different city then returning.

Basically, federal law only guarantees continuity of law between states and cities. If weed was federally legal, you could smoke in Colorado and still be legal in Texas while it's in your system, as long as Texas doesn't have a specific law against it. City law > State law > Federal law

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