Cannabis consumers who would like to work in the legalised cannabis industry in the US are often being denied jobs, according to Forbes.
In Florida, where the state’s medical marijuana market is in its infancy, cannabis operations are rushing to hire budtenders, cultivation experts and various other workers to assist in serving the hundreds of thousands of patients.
However, many businesses are simply refusing to hire marijuana users and people with drug-related blemishes on their record, regardless of their qualifications. Such high standards have disqualified the majority of job applicants. Roughly only about 10 per cent of those who apply for positions in Florida’s cannabis market are employable.
A major part of the problem is that Florida law dictates that all employees of medical marijuana operations have no criminal record. So while it is conceivable that a job applicant with a misdemeanor for pot possession could be allowed to sell marijuana in the legal sector, anyone convicted of engaging in these activities before legalisation can be automatically blacklisted.
Some recruitment firms are therefore telling applicants not to bring up their cannabis-related activities in job interviews.
The ‘no-stoners-allowed’ policy is not so much of a problem in states that have legalised for recreational use.
Campaigners, patients and those hopeful of being employed by a legal industry in Britain say there are concerns over the direction that policy will take shape here. “There is a real fear here that a legal cannabis market in Britain will be designed to serve the corporate interest of businesses from North America instead of catering for what Briain actually needs,” said Greg de Hoedt, UK Cannabis Social Club Chairman.
“People that have been responsible for bringing the cannabis market to a legal status are being discriminated against again – simply for being cannabis consumers.
“Wasn’t this one of the reasons that so many campaigned to make it legal in the first place? There are potentially 20,000 cannabis related jobs ready to go right now in the UK but the Government is allowing this to go to waste, prefering to criminalise these people instead of letting them earn a legitimate income and paying taxes on it.”
Teesside Cannabis Club have actually taken the model of the UK Cannabis Social Clubs to new heights by employing their first official member of staff through the Job Center Plus. One member has even instructed one of the club members who is on Employment Support Allowance that he must attend the club twice a week as part of his back to work program as attending the club is helping him reintegrate back into a normal work life.
Canada has seen a similar sweeping out of the traditional cannabis dispensary that so many citizens have been using to access safer cannabis products and avoiding the black market. This has provided thousands of jobs that are now being made redundant with federal legalisation that is coming into play on October 17th.
It is not entirely certain how the UK cannabis industry and market is going to be shaped yet but you can be assured that UK Cannabis Social Clubs are campaigning to make sure that there are British businesses running the industry here in order to help keep cannabis money in the British economy and the people that have worked hard to make it happen won’t be left out.
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