New California laws: Employers can’t discriminate against weed use

New 2024 California laws

From minimum wage to public health, here's a roundup of some new state laws coming to California in 2024.

LOS ANGELES - It's almost the new year, and that means a whole new crop of new laws will be taking effect in California, including two that prevent employers from discriminating against both workers and job applicants for their marijuana use.

Both bills — Assembly Bill 2188 and Senate Bill 700 — are additions to the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, which as the name implies, protects against discrimination because of things like age, religion, gender, disability and more. Each bill handles different aspects of marijuana use, and specifically marijuana use while off the job.

AB 2188 specifically relates to employment decisions based off weed use. The bill would make it illegal for an employer to discriminate against a person in hiring, firing or any other condition of employment for their weed use off the job, or any employer-required drug test that searches for nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolites. Nonpsychoactive metabolites are what is left in a person's system after the effects of THC have worn off.

The text for AB 2188 says that these changes were made because "when most tests are conducted for cannabis, the results only show the presence of the nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolite and have no correlation to impairment on the job."

SB 700, on the other hand, makes it illegal for employers to ask job applicants for info about their prior cannabis use, and makes it illegal for employers to use info on an applicant's cannabis use they obtained from a criminal background check to impact employment decisions.

Neither of these laws apply to people in the building and construction trade businesses, or any jobs that require a federal government background check. They also don't prevent employers from making decisions based on tests for other drugs, and they don't overrule any other state or federal laws that may pertain to different industries.

Both laws take effect on Jan. 1, 2024.