New Legislation

Subscribe to New Legislation via RSS

Election Day 2016 saw voters approve new marijuana laws in seven states. There are now a total of 28 states (plus the District of Columbia) with medical marijuana laws and 8 states (plus the District of Columbia) with recreational marijuana laws. Arizona’s proposed recreational marijuana law did not pass.  Read the full article on Jackson…

Currently, twenty-five states and the District of Columbia have medical marijuana laws, while four states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for recreational use.  On Election Day 2016, eight more states will consider adopting such laws.  Here is a brief summary of those proposed laws, focusing on the implications for employers:

Medical Marijuana…

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed legislation that legalizes the use of marijuana for medicinal uses on April 17, 2016. The new law, Senate Bill 3, known as “The Medical Marijuana Act” permits patients suffering from ALS, autism, cancer, Crohn’s disease, nerve damage, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, Huntington’s Disease, inflammatory bowel syndrome, intractable seizures, multiple sclerosis,…

President Obama signed the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act on December 4, 2015, a law that funds improvements to the nation’s roads, bridges, transit systems, and rail transportation network for a period of five years.

Among other things, the FAST Act directs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to issue scientific…

Less than two months before New York’s Compassionate Care Act of 2014 was supposed to make medical marijuana available to qualified patients, Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed a measure (A. 7060, S. 5086) creating “an expedited pathway” to the drug for the seriously ill. The purpose of the measure, according to its legislative findings and…

Louisiana employers now can drug test employees’ hair samples, thanks to a recent amendment to the State’s drug testing statute.

Signed by Governor Bobby Jindal on June 5, 2015, House Bill 379 closes an 18 year-old loophole in Louisiana’s drug testing law, which permitted employers to drug test hair specimens (in addition to blood, saliva…

Georgia became the twenty-fourth state to enact a medical marijuana law. On April 16, 2015, Governor Nathan Deal signed legislation that immediately legalizes the use of a low-potency form of cannabis oil for medicinal uses. The new law, House Bill 1, known as “Haleigh’s Hope Act,” permits patients suffering from cancer, Crohn’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s…

Buried in the $1.1 trillion federal spending bill for 2015 — which Congress approved last weekend and which President Obama signed into law on December 16, 2014 — is a measure stating that federal funds may not be used by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to prevent certain states from implementing medical marijuana laws. …

Voters in Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia approved laws legalizing recreational marijuana yesterday.  Colorado and Washington first passed such laws in 2012.

Laws legalizing recreational marijuana reflect a growing acceptance of marijuana use by the American public as well as the federal government’s current position (since mid-2013) not to oppose state laws permitting…