According to a report, Home Depot will no longer conduct marijuana testing for potential employees and will also ban marijuana testing of current employees.
The wholesaler, which employs about 400,000 people at more than 2,000 locations nationwide, sent out a memo earlier this week saying it would “remove marijuana from all drug lists” across all of the company’s U.S. operations, according to news site Marijuana Moment.
The human resources directive said the company would also prohibit marijuana testing following a workplace accident or in cases where there is reasonable suspicion that an employee was impaired, the website said.
Pre-employment drug testing for marijuana “will only be conducted on external candidates with conditional offers in asset protection and corporate security,” the memo cited in the report said.
The changes are reportedly set to come into effect on September 1.
The Post has asked Home Depot for comment.
“Home Depot continually evaluates its policies, the external environment and benchmarks with other companies to ensure we remain competitive while complying with local, state and federal laws,” said the memo, the contents of which were first shared on a Home Depot-affiliated Reddit forum.
A Reddit user wrote that he was informed of the new protocol during a morning meeting on Monday.
The user wrote a post on the r/HomeDepot subreddit stating that “starting September 1st, there will be no more testing for marijuana, even if there is reasonable suspicion. We will also eliminate drug testing at cherry pickers.”
“I heard it too, but not in a meeting,” wrote another Reddit user, who claimed he was informed by “a person who should have known and had no reason to lie to me.”
“It was announced at the enterprise level today,” wrote another user on Reddit.
Another commenter added: “It was emailed to the members of the management team… I assume it will be discussed at the staff meetings today.”
Later Monday, a Reddit user wrote that the change “has now been published on the Viva HR community with an HR communications PDF dated August 23rd.”
With the new initiative, Home Depot becomes one of the largest private companies to forgo marijuana screening.
Amazon, the e-commerce giant with a global workforce of 1.5 million people, announced in 2021 that it would no longer test many of its employees for marijuana.
Some states have passed laws to protect workers from disciplinary action for cannabis use.
In California, employers are prohibited from asking job applicants about their past marijuana use, and most companies are prohibited from penalizing employers for legal marijuana use outside of work hours.
Washington state prohibits companies from refusing to hire someone based on their past marijuana use, but the law does not protect workers from penalties they face for using marijuana outside of work.
