LANSING — Effective Sunday, prospective employees for most state of Michigan jobs will no longer have to pass a screening test for marijuana.
The Michigan Civil Service Commission voted to lift the requirement at its July 12 meeting, bringing state hiring policy more in line with a 2018 ballot initiative in which Michigan voters legalized recreational marijuana use for those 21 and older, by a 56% to 44% vote.
The change comes amid an ongoing hiring crunch in which the state has had difficulty filling large numbers of jobs.
The Free Press flagged the issue in a February article, noting that in 2022, the state rejected 151 job applicants who had already received conditional offers of employment after they tested positive for marijuana. That was just over triple the 49 failed marijuana tests in 2018, the last year marijuana was illegal under state law, and more than double the 71 failed marijuana tests resulting from the state hiring process in 2021, according to the Office of State Employer.
A little over two months later, in May of this year, the state gave notice it was mulling a change.
Preemployment marijuana testing will still be required for about 14,000 of the 48,000 state jobs that are deemed sensitive. Those include jobs that require a commercial driver’s license, jobs in law enforcement or corrections, and jobs that involve handling hazardous materials.
Also, it will still violate civil service rules for any state employee to show up for work under the influence of…
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