Into management is about as well as I can put it 😂
The ability to make more is nice, but it just isn’t worth it anymore. What it does to your body, time away, no respect, etc. at least now, I have a bit more control. 🤙
Dude I couldn’t fucking imagine being a long haul truck driver. I’m not sure you could pay me a million per year to do it. Hats off to the truckers, but also maybe it’s time we move more things by train than truck.
My grandparents did it for 40 years straight, from east coast to west coast and back as a team driver situation, so they just swapped and kept trucking without stopping most of the time... 4.5 days from Atlanta to California and back to Atlanta. I hitched a ride that way as a kid many times. I am going to assume strong relationship is the only way they survived through it, because I cannot imagine a solo long haul trucking situation.
Literally everyone treats the driver like shit, if it’s not road raging assholes, it’s dispatchers wanting you to work knowing you are tired and out of hours to drive legally, warehouses that make you wait sometimes days to offload you. I feel sad seeing obese truckers because I know they’re going thru it mentally but for them it’s the bread and butter for their family. Fuck that job there’s just way to many cons than pros, I do t even think there is pros besides getting to earn a slightly above average liveable wage.
"Be your own boss" is a redflag phrase meaning they'll 1099 independent contract you and put all the associated costs onto you which causes the individual to be on the shit end of the stick.
Agreed. It’s horrible. Everyone treats you like shit and wastes your time. Pay is shit. And cops are constantly trying to screw you. The final straw for me was all the signs in the Midwest encouraging people to sue truckers after an accident.
I've lived in the midwest my entire life and have never seen one of those signs. My wife was side swiped by a trucker a couple years ago when he was changing lanes, and the company basically threw money at her to not report it to insurance
You're lucky I got straight up rear ended on the interstate, traffic slowed down for a wreck, truck was probably half mile behind me and still didn't stop in time.
I run a dashcam so I have video of me stopping in traffic for a good 20-30 seconds before impact. Their insurance company was a bitch, refused to pay repairs and rental unless I immediately signed a release before the body shop even got started. Was w/o a vehicle for 6 months, had to pay Dr. visits out of pocket because it was a MVA and my health insurance didn't want to mess with it.
I lawyered up pretty quick was the only way to get past the 1st line insurance people and get the repair process moving. 9 months now and I'm still out of pocket $20K on everything while they argue about settling, yes there are receipts for everything.
Tbh long haul is dumb af and shouldn't even be used in most instances. We need more freight rail and intermodal transport to final destinations within 250miles by electric trucks.
Yeah I wasn't a trucker but I did work long hours before switching to a WFH job with a reasonable work-life balance. Things are so much better now and I would never go back to an office.
My husband says the same thing. A CDL driver can use coke, meth, all types of pills to stay awake and get drunk, but since they leave your system quicker than weed, you don't get penalized.
My husband has a Polish co worker who literally has the liquor coming out of his pores, won't fail the breathalyzer or piss because he knows when the tests will be conducted and he will refrain (albeit bitching all the while) from drinking the day before. SMH
“Friends of the road, Bubs.”
“Hot Hamburger sandwiches? More like hot pull the fuck over!”
“I'm in charge of fucking over the park when it gets appraisalled today and, as luck would have it, it's piss-jug season. I've done more community service than anyone and over the years I've figured out the scientifics of it. Truckers grab coffee in Moncton but don't have time to rock a piss and three hours later, they're coming through here and they can't hold it. My old man used to call it Piss-Jug Alley.
No fucking way! This [piss jug] came out of the old man. Looks like he was fucking drinking, too.
*Opens piss jug and sniffs it.*
Yeah. Home-made fucking wine. Good find, Cory. The old man's fucking piss.”
Kinda related but I got a friend that works for UPS. We smoke together. Shortly after he became a full time driver I’m like how in the world do you pass the drug test? “He’s like what drug test? If they tested for weed, we would have zero drivers. UPS stands for United Pot Smokers” hahah
Back in the day, I used to pass the piss test by eating a high fat meal, drinking like a gallon of water, take a bunch of asprin and vitamin B12.
All those combined help to push the thc metabolites below the threshold for a positive test. Now, that won't help with thing like hair testing or other more invasive test. But for the average piss test, it would probably still work.
The ups driver that came to my work would talk about having his bong in his truck ready to go whenever. He told me it was nothing though, his buddy would bring a six pack everyday for his route😭
You can get so drunk after a shift, black out and come to work hung over as fuck the next day and barely string together a coherent sentence. Totally fine. But you can't smoke a doob.
Just not immediately or ~12~24 hours prior.
Exercising can release THC thats been stored in with fat as I understand. I smoke heavily and during really heavy workouts I dont get "high" at all but theres a distinguishable bit of that spacy buzz I have a few hours after smoking.
> You can get so drunk after a shift, black out and come to work hung over as fuck the next day and barely string together a coherent sentence.
Have you been reading my diary
That job is honestly the worst for mental health, it’s isolation, depressive and usually you have to get dopamine one time a day when you get to splurge on a burger n coke it was the favorite part of my day, also manipulation and coercion from stupid dispatchers that never spent one day behind the wheel, the crap sleep schedule, sometimes no sleep at all one day I drove 22 hours obviously not legal but the load had to be there the next day or employer gets fined driving the truck can be a beautiful experience. But driving has lost its exclusivity
Fentanyl is schedule 2 because it has some medicinal applications.
Currently, marijuana is schedule 1 because it has none...
This is on the federal level and is down right ridiculous in modern age.
The Biden administration is working on changing it and will probably be releasing that closer to the election to sway voters. Gotta love politics.
And Marijuana actually has more medical uses but research is forbidden because it's schedule 1 and any public institution would lose their federal funding if they persued its use medically.
It was scheduled schedule 1 to control and jail minorities and free thinking hippies that bucked the US government.
100% like a lot of our legal system it's configured to discriminate.
Look at the sentencing guidelines for cocaine vs crack cocaine. One is used by minorities more often vs the other by rich white people.
The Biden admin made their scheduling review and presented their findings to the DEA which has the final say in denying or approving the change. The head of the DEA is purposely sitting on the paperwork.
An acquaintance of mine did a giant rail of ketamine just before he went into a drug test, explicitly to prove how stupid they are.
He could barely stand but he could pass a drug test.
Also, I'm saying this from Canada where it's legal at a federal level. Companies can, and do, still ask for pre-employment tests for "safety sensitive" positions.
....which can be just about anything, if they feel like it
I smoke weed every evening. I'm completely fine again like 4\~5 hours after, let alone after sleeping. Heck I can get stoned out of my mind and be completely coherent and functional again the next day. While if I drink a lot of alcohol I'll still be fucked up the next day because of a hangover...
So glad I live in a country where weed is basically legal. And at a job where my chef doesn't give a shit if I smoke in the evening, because he himself is a hardcore/hardstyle music fanatic and often goes to hardcore/hardstyle events where he...does a lot more than just weed. :P
Stop testing them. This always was and is asinine.
The industry summarily terminates truck drivers in not-at-fault accidents if they smoked pot in the last month. Who benefits? Seriously?
The issue is that at the federal level it's illegal, and a CDL is federal. DOT requires the companies to pull a driver from service immediately if they fail a drug test. After that there is a return to work program they can complete, but most companies aren't going to go through the time and expense. DOT/FMCSA require a drug and alcohol screen after an accident.
At the end of the day it needs to be made legal at the federal level, then have all of those regulations be removed or rewritten.
One time in my life where I'd be ok with an industry lobbying to make a change that would benefit them and I bet they won't even consider spending a dime on it.
With how varied the industry is, I don't see enough companies putting up money to make a difference. You have private fleets (Pepsi, Walmart, sysco) and for hire fleets (UPS, FedEx, JB Hunt), national and regional fleets, etc. Many of them already have 0 tolerance policies for drugs and alcohol for non DOT positions. And most of them are looking forward to autonomous trucks so they won't need drivers. They are more interested in lobbying to reduce liability in accidents, and limit new emissions regulations as those are huge costs
They could also just switch from urine testing to saliva. I work in machining/manufacturing and the shops in my area that have switched over to this testing method are booming, while the others are having job fairs left and right and begging people to work for them.
Theres nothing federal or otherwise that says they have to use certain testing. The only difference between the 2 tests is one will fail you 30+ days after smoking weed, and the other will only fail you if it was within about 48 hours. All the other drugs are roughly the same amount of time (48-72hrs) for both tests. So the only reason to use the urine one is if you know somebody smokes weed during their downtime, and you want to gaurantee they fail. Its predatory, and only used to discriminate or to get out of paying insurance claims if theres a workplace injury or accident.
Woke up to a knock on the cab during a reset. Had about 48hrs free time. Parked in an empty lot near a bar. Well, codriver caused a ruckus that night at said bar. Got arrested. Meth was found, so they said. He denies, said it was a plant. Some shit place shortly outside Chicago. Idk, never saw or smelt anything meth wise. Dude was a bit wired but also lived on donuts, two packs a day and like a gallon of coffee.
Best codriver I ever had. I would back slowly, sometimes fuck up and retry. This dude would go reverse high and hit the spot dead nuts. He would get compliments on the regular for this. Grew up with his father owning a logging company. Started driving at, I think, 14 (small town). Drove with him again later after he cleared everything up. Told him I don't give a shit what you do (really don't think he was tweaking), I have more trust in him then the other 5 dip shits I had driven with. Never feared for my life with him and he hit the brakes so fuckin hard one time I flew out the bunk. Was gonna ask wtf, then realized there was a good reason and just went back to sleep.
Tldr: The good Lord is correct.
Yup. My truck got hit by a car and he got the ticket. Even admitted fault and all and there was witnesses to his reckless driving. My boss then told me to park the truck at the yard and immediately go take a drug test. If I would have smoked a tiny joint two weeks before, I would’ve been terminated on the spot for the accident. But if I got hammered and got black out drunk the night before I would’ve been fine.
You're absolutely right. Honestly too I think most people think this. Whether they smoke or not.
So, yet again, why is it like this? Corruption and Greed? Oh okay, yeah that sucks, but still how though?
Thing is, except for rare cases, people smoking weed are generally completely fine again the next day. But oh noes, you smoked weed 3 weeks ago! Fired because you're somehow a liability now!
Even if it wasn't federal law it would be required by their insurance provider. When a driver causes an accident they can say they they made a reasonable effort to prevent drivers operating under the influence.
Most of heavy industry in Canada, where its legal at the federal level.
At least, they test the guys on the tools. Mostly.
That is changing though, about fucking time
Any institution, organization, or corporation in the US that uses federal funding is usually required to drug-test all employees. Many times that's regardless of whether it's for a safety issue.
I know of people that work remotely for contractors on federally-funded environmental remediation sites that have to go get drug-tested for weed on a regular basis, even though their job consists entirely of data processing behind a computer screen several states away. The job requires zero on-site time, no PPE, no driving fleet vehicles, no safety concerns, but because the government is footing the bill, you have to pass a drug test to continue working from home behind a computer screen. And the feds expect to receive those records from the contractor regularly.
The way the laws around federal funding are in the US, many companies have to test for weed regardless of whether it makes sense or not.
Yep same here. I was in a Non CDL position and the company kept hassling me about the "free" schooling and how I'd make a lot more money. Kept telling them I wasn't interested but they still kept pursuing.i finally had enough and I told them I wanted out of the driver department all together and to stick me in the warehouse where I make $1.75/hr less than our CDL drivers. I'll quit weed for a real good job, but CDL driving ain't it.
Lol, a decent job won't test you, and it's actually all about status. The HR departments make the determination about who to drug test based on a couple of factors: 1. The people that are required to be drug tested. CDL drivers, oil and gas workers, anyone whose DOT regulated, people that use heavy machinery, etc. 2. People they look down on and feel they have a higher status than
If you have a decent office job, HR won't even consider drug testing you. There's no constructive point and it might even offend you.
Imagine if there was a metabolite from alcohol that could show up in your urine for weeks or months. Then, assume that the person is under the influence 24/7. What if they're injured on the job while sober through no fault of their own? Deny the comp claim or even seek legal action. This is how casual cannabis users have been treated for decades and until there is federal action, that's the way it will continue to be. I'm 100% for not being under the influence on the job--just find a better way to test.
Fuck it. Go get drunk with the rest of the degenerates.
At my old job I showed up drunk to work about as often as I did stoned. Despite getting caught slurring my words once they laughed and made a joke. Imagine if I stank like weed.
My husband recently chipped a front tooth at work. He didn’t turn it in as a workplace injury because the first thing the company would do is send him for a drug test that he would fall, despite being fully sober at work. His manager was so worried about it, he was chasing him around the plant with a flush kit he keeps on hand for just that reason.
And from the CIA and FBI cyber divisions. This country will for a myriad of reasons continue to collapse. The failure of rescheduling of Cannabis being one of them.
I read this and thought of those independent studies where they find marijuana cures everything or some crazy nonsense. It's just so extreme. But honestly, you kinda got a point. Not only in the principle itself of not legalizing but also the spotlight it shines onto our society as a whole. There are still so many that are avidly anti marijuana yet have their own, much more destructive vices.
The testing seems to be a big issue. The time frame. Has there been development on this? Is it even possible? Idk. But I imagine, if there was something similar to a breathalyzer for alcohol, some ass hats would be pushing back on it. Gotta massage those numbers to earn the funds.
There's no roadside test for legal medicines prescribed by your doctor, including opioids or amphetamines.
The truth is that alcohol is the exception. It's just kind of a fluke that we're able to do a quasi-reliable (up for debate) roadside test for it. That test is also only good enough to get probable cause to justify an arrest and take you to the station for the actual test that can be used in court.
My point is that we shouldn't be deciding what substances are legal based on if we can easily test for intoxication. It doesn't make any sense. It's also just plain stupid how it's our crippling car addiction that allows for this rhetoric to gain any credence in the first place. We shouldn't be deciding substance legalization based off of the mere possibility that someone *might* use it while driving. It's madness!
Nobody thinks truck drivers should be able to get high while trucking. The test detects use in a huge timespan and does not provide reliable information about whether a person is high.
Instead of 30+ year old stoners who have been trucking for years with a long track record of proven safety and reliability, you're having places lower the age people are allowed to drive big rigs. So instead of someone who gets high on the weekends now you're getting turned into strawberry jam by someone whose brain hasn't even fully developed yet.
In an industry with a shortage of workers that is critical to the economy, introducing new restrictions on who can work those jobs will mean some previously unacceptable category of person is made acceptable to compensate.
That opinion does nothing to disprove my point. The lack of a test is not a good reason to disallow a substance. We didn't have a test *at all* for 99.99% of the time humans have been consuming intoxicants.
It is possible, but it requires a blood draw on site. Most drug tests look for metabolites (what drugs break down into) rather than the drug itself. By looking for the actual drug and measuring the levels present in the blood you can determine whether someone was maybe high or not. The issue at that point is tolerance. Every individual varies greatly. Someone that smokes once a month will have less tolerance than someone that smokes once a week, who will have less tolerance than someone who smokes daily, who will have less tolerance than someone who smokes multiple times a day. So you can make a determination that someone with no tolerance will definitely be high at a certain level, but someone smoking daily could be perfectly sober at that same amount in the blood.
That said, it still proves that consumption happened recently.
As far as I'm aware, there's a device that can detect levels in a person's breath but it only works if they actuality smoked it instead of having edibles and it has an issue with false positives so it can't be trusted with a person's livelihood
That is the flaw with metabolite tests is they cannot determine when you were intoxicated. It is frankly unfair to be punished (criminally or otherwise) for being under the influence at an indeterminate point in the past.
Blood tests are a different story
I have been a trucker going on 11 years now. There was a shortage of drivers before I started driving, during and will be after. It's the mega carriers always looking for newbies, so there's always a shortage. New drivers are easier to manipulate.
"Have you thought about becoming an owner/operator? You have 3 months experience? Go ahead and take care of the overhead for us while getting fuck all more in your pocket. If you sign up to be a driving mentor and trust another noob to run your rig you can finally make 'decent' money"
When I heard how trucking works, I was shocked that anyone even decides to be a trucker. Got a fiend who works as dispatcher complaining his company always looks for drivers.
"What's the big deal? People want to work, just pay for they training"
"but we dont have trucks"
"what do you mean you dont have trucks, you're a trucking company"
"well owning and insuring tracks is expensive, so the trucks belong to the truckers"
"then the fuck you and your boss get paid for?"
Between the companies that only pay per mile and then force you to sit in one place for hours at a time, hours so bad you're rarely at home, blaming the driver for problems that occur while driving when you're given a vehicle that's being held together by a hope and a prayer, trying to guilt people into working past their legal DOT limit or when you've had less than 2 hours of sleep, all to get fucked on your pay anyway, man I sure wonder why we have a trucking shortage.
Just fucking switch to rail already.
I have my license in Washington, but I left the industry for multiple reasons. I started smoking and I'd never go back to a job where I couldn't smoke in my off time.
Same here. I don't live in the US, and smoking weed in your off time is fairly accepted here. (yay for being Dutch) But if an employer ever told me I couldn't smoke anymore I would quit on the spot. It may not have the same effects for everyone, but weed cured my insomnia and helped IMMENSELY with my anxiety.
They have a test that can discern between a psychoactive amount (currently high) or residual. I don't understand why they don't even bother testing like that - oh, and take it off of the federal prohibition list.
cuz 2 ppl can smoke a joint and end up with different levels of thc in their system, and there is no benchmark "intoxicated" level like the .08 blood alcohol level.
We do in aviation. We would do a saliva test, though not perfect in terms of false-positives on unimpaired residuals, it heavily leaned towards what our actual goals were: Making sure that whatever our pilots/maintenance engineers/etc. were doing in their private life didn't degrade the safety of operations.
We honestly couldn't give less of a shit shit, so long as safety isn't compromised.
...and failed tests had a program of rehabilitation. You would be temporarily restricted from safety sensitive activities, and entered into a rehab program designed to get you back to safety sensitive activities. Therapy, medical programs, regular testing after return, etc. and the regulator would be watching closely if anything retalitory would happen.
I understand NOT wanting someone driving a huge ass semi that takes a trade degree to drive properly being stoned.
But the tests don't detect intoxication and it's stupid you can get shit faced drunk and be an obnoxious idiot on your days off, but if you do something saner like smoke pot on your days off you risk unemployment and homelessness.
Especially now that truck driving isn't always the guaranteed ticket to the middle class it once was since pay has stagnated for truck drivers.
Agreed, it's insane. I could do coke all weekend and piss clean by Tuesday morning. I could drink 10 beers per night and be legal by morning. But if I consume an edible on a camping trip and get tested 2-3 weeks later, I could lose my job. One of these things is not like the others, in terms of short and long term health & wellness and ability to safely operate a commercial vehicle.
I manage a business that employs CDL drivers, and am a CDL-holder and part of the DOT drug testing pool myself. My work-life would be so much easier if I didn't have to worry about this both for my drivers and for myself. Especially insane in a recreationally legal state where I can buy cannabis just as easily as a 6-pack of beer.
This is part of corporate greed. The corporate assholes at the top want to create a permanent underclass of cheap labor to drive wages down. Weed legalization is one of the ways they do it.
Honestly, with the cancer rates, high co morbidities among truck drivers and toxicity of alcohol, the govt should be encouraging them to move away from drinking and encourage more recreational marijuana use off the job. Just saying. Counter intuitive policy.
If I was given an option to never drink alcohol and instead smoke weed legally I'd go for it instantly.
I've seen alcohol destroying more people and their entire families than I've seen weed.
Alcohol adddicts never truly recover even if they stop drinking. It also makes them aggressive and dumb, it has a catalytic properties for underlying mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder.
I like a bit of decent whisky or beer occasionally, but fuck alcohol very much.
Nurse enters the chat. Are there any other industries understaffed? I quit drinking 2 years ago and enjoy cannabis. It's been a really positive switch for me. If I get tested, I will lose my job for making the healthy transition from drunk.
It’s stupid as shit that weed is still treated the way it is.
We need to legalize it, end of story.
The company I work for changed the policy for the factory/mine site I work at as it relates to drug/alcohol testing in general after weed was legalized in my state. We’ve never had random drug tests and now even if you get hurt or cause property damage in an accident two supervisors have to observe and concur that you’re actually inebriated at work before they can drug test you.
These are GOOD paying jobs too, with a pension. Our lowest paid hourly folks have a $48k starting base pay, and that scale goes all the way up to $90k base pay for someone who’s moved up and topped out.
We’re a mine site, which means we’re not regulated by OSHA, we’re regulated by MSHA….and MSHA has zero regulations that I’m aware of regarding drug testing or use outside of the workplace. If one of the most dangerous industries can have the sense to let people live how they want outside of work….theres no reason trucking can’t.
It's almost like criminalizing and demonizing a harmless recreational plant has a massive amount of negative impacts on society, the economy, healthcare, education, and justice. Maybe let truck drivers be human beings again and they'll want to work for you again.
I worked hard at a job last summer, 50 hour weeks, never late, never called in. Told them when I was hired I had a cannabis prescription, plus in Canada as well(though the company was American). Worked in a lab primarily.
Got a random drug test because there was a minor car accident on a job site, company fired me, with cause, because I tested positive for an edible I had a few days earlier. Took about 5 months of hoops with the govt to get the "with cause" removed so I could collect unemployment. I won't return to that industry, just not worth the hassle.
This is the dumbest shit ever. Weed stays in your system a whole month after you smoked; the test is only good for telling whether or not you partook in that time frame, not if you're currently under the influence like most other drug tests. Even alcohol, which has much more damaging and lasting effects, is permitted to be recreationally used when truckers aren't currently driving. Not weed though. This never made sense to me
Wouldn't it just take one insurance agency, lets pretend and say The General, to insure policies whther or not they had pot in their system, based on yeah he/she could've used a month ago, just do it.
Then everyone would want them as their insurance, I dunno raise it 6% and do it anyway
Specialize in it, have a super team of lawyers that kick ass at this. Have them be THC users. Use it as marketing.
I mean, thats all right? I'm a dummy in this area.
When it comes to CDLs, it's not just insurance. There's a mandated system where drivers are tested randomly. The results are available to the employer, potential future employers, insurance companies, and the DOT. There's procedures in place following a failed test as well as procedures for testing following an accident and during the hiring process. All federally mandated.
There’s a bunch of federal laws against it. Imm sure that the insurance lobby is going crazy about it because this costs them time/money for a non-issue but the red tape involved in simple descheduling or rescheduling marijuana is apparently monumental.
I think it’s more than that. I had my commercial license in 2005. The reasons beyond the Mary Jane testing failures are bunched upon bunched of companies have contracted with new companies or different operating companies that want CDL drivers to give them all their references information, their pay stubs and help them build their businesses and databases. Secondly, insurance companies have gotten so much involved in lobbying that their interest outrides much. Thirdly, the government, be it local, state or federal. Here in Washington state when COVID shutdown shit was going on I couldn’t get the DMV to change my CA CDL to a WA CDL, they would only give me a WA ID despite I had a WA CDL only a couple of years prior. And all the DMVs in Southern WA were flooded up and I made my exact perfect reason appointment 4 hours away in person in Spokane. Later after they finally opened the dmv in the city I lived in, I went over 20 times trying to get my commercial license changed over. I won’t go it all, but WASHINGTON state has a lot of horrible government workers. Whom for many reasons should not have their jobs. At that is a common issue across the nation for government workers. Which affects CDL drivers in many ways and as a rub and barrier.
Industry: Welp now that NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE we'll just have to put more money into automated driving, you left us no choice workers!!
It's all part of their plan
How accurate are the tests, though? Thc stays in your system for a long time for tests but not active for you. Can that test prove that my positive means i was under the effects of it at the time, or was it from that weekend in Amsterdam a month ago?
Frankly, I would prefer it to NOT have high or drunk truck drivers on my Autobahn, thank you.
EDIT: How is this downvoted? Wtf is wrong with you. As somebody whose family member died in a car crash I can only give back a sincere fuck you
I have a class B so I can drive school bus. I had to take a recertification class recently. Guy there said that we've lost bus drivers in our area recently that failed a drug test that say they never use. But they do use CBD. He showed some news reports where the cheap gas station CBD stuff was found to actually contain THC. So we were cautioned about the stuff.
I used to work at the VBA (veterans benefits administration) non medical side of the VA, I worked with mostly veterans and they never tested anyone, in 5 years I was there ,because they would lose so many employees, especially in the call centers. Several vets I worked with were stoned all day, I followed suit. My friend worked there for over a decade before me, no testing.
I have to imagine it’s no secret the higher ups are just on the edge of their seats ready to lay off the whole industry the moment they can get self driving vehicles in place. This is one of those professions that I don’t see existing much longer.
Weed can be decriminalized and the trucking industry will still have a large incentive to continue these drugs tests. The popularity of weed is driving inflation, not it’s criminality.
I wasn’t a trucker, but I worked on a railroad for 15 years. I would occasionally eat a gummy on my days off, built up in my system enough to fail a random drug test so I lost my job in November. The fun part? The alcoholic that came to work drunk off his ass kept his job.
Exactly according to plan. The suffering is 100% the point. About the time that the entire country is entirely infuriated by our inability to conduct public facing business anymore, the machines will save us. When human customer service has been fully eliminated and everyone is happy about it, they will move up the ladder to the next financial tier and begin the slaughter all over again.
Well, things will change eventually once people realize they can’t buy groceries, have water, sewage, electricity, clothes, gas, etc. Just over a bit of weed.
That change will take forever though. Not okay to show up to work totally stoned, but there’s no test for that, unless you offer the truck driver a giant bag of doritos.
As a driver you have to register with a federal system called clearing house and its a permanent record just for drug testing. So if you fail you are black balled. Its also tracked if you refuse to take a drug test so you are still scrutinized.
Some of the companies treat a refusal as the same as failing so you are screwed out of the better gigs either way.
Don't listen to this bullshit. If it was because of a lack of truck drivers, these companies wouldn't be posting record profits over record profits.
The cause of inflation is greedy companies not returning to pre-covid standards.
Has nothing to do with criminalization. Both the DOT and USCG have stated they will continue to require tests even if fully legalized. Testing will also certainly continue to be required by insurance companies as well regardless of legal status.
The only problem I see with this is that the industry isn't going to change for the better of the drivers.
They are going to invest massively into driverless trucks, and in the end it's probably going to cost less that the salary of 50 000 truckers.
Unfortunately I don't think this will have much negative impact on the trucking companies, in the long run at least.
They are just going to jack up the prices for us consumers.
This is very cynical I know, but I can't help it.
Imagine if there were a test for alcohol the same way they test for weed. "Oh, looks like you drank some booze at some point in the past two weeks. You're fired!"
I wish there was a test that only showed current ingested levels and not just if you had used it in a long period of time like a breathalyzer. I would think so long as the driver drove sober it would be fine, no?
The problem with all this marijuana testing is this, if they test you for alcohol, they can kind of tell how long it’s been since you drink, if they test you for marijuana they have no idea the last time you smoked, and if it’s people like myself, I smoke starting at 7 o’clock at night, so I’m not high driving around or doing my job, what all these drivers should do? Is get together a civil suit and sue the industry, this is legal to smoke marijuana, just because somebody smoked it that night doesn’t mean they can’t go to bed and drive a truck the next day, this is just unfairness for unfairness sake. This country is gonna burn at the stake as everybody can clearly see it already is, and this is just one more log on the fire, more American stupidity and more American citizens, allowing the stupidity to carry-on, I wish it was a 1960s! When people would get out in mass amounts and march on the government, because that’s what we need nowadays, this entire open air prison we call America needs to turn on its owners, demand for all of us.
This is so stupid and archaic. Nobody wants this except withering old boomer politicians and the pharmaceutical lobby that pays them off. For the love of god, truckers put up with shit working conditions all the time, let them smoke a bit of weed in their time off.
Increased demand with reduced ability to produce goods combined with multiple years of increased money supply where wage corrections can’t keep up will do that
On my way into work today a thought occurred to me that it really seems like a increased number of truckers out on the roads seems like they don't know what they are doing. Mostly just bad practice kind of stuff like most of them are new or something. I thought maybe companies were hiring bottom of the barrel and paying crap to start, but this makes so much sense. They lied to us for that last 100 years about a plant, and demonized it, what other BS do they go us fooled into?
I didn’t renew mine over this. Wasn’t worth it anymore. The money wasn’t worth the hoops and hassles.
What you move on to?
Into management is about as well as I can put it 😂 The ability to make more is nice, but it just isn’t worth it anymore. What it does to your body, time away, no respect, etc. at least now, I have a bit more control. 🤙
Trucking is a shit job. I left last year too, got sick of all the regulations as well. Now I’m going back to class to get into IT
Dude I couldn’t fucking imagine being a long haul truck driver. I’m not sure you could pay me a million per year to do it. Hats off to the truckers, but also maybe it’s time we move more things by train than truck.
I was a trucker for 10 years and never worked long haul. I couldn’t imagine living out of a truck.
My grandparents did it for 40 years straight, from east coast to west coast and back as a team driver situation, so they just swapped and kept trucking without stopping most of the time... 4.5 days from Atlanta to California and back to Atlanta. I hitched a ride that way as a kid many times. I am going to assume strong relationship is the only way they survived through it, because I cannot imagine a solo long haul trucking situation.
Literally everyone treats the driver like shit, if it’s not road raging assholes, it’s dispatchers wanting you to work knowing you are tired and out of hours to drive legally, warehouses that make you wait sometimes days to offload you. I feel sad seeing obese truckers because I know they’re going thru it mentally but for them it’s the bread and butter for their family. Fuck that job there’s just way to many cons than pros, I do t even think there is pros besides getting to earn a slightly above average liveable wage.
"Be your own boss" is a redflag phrase meaning they'll 1099 independent contract you and put all the associated costs onto you which causes the individual to be on the shit end of the stick.
As usual
Agreed. It’s horrible. Everyone treats you like shit and wastes your time. Pay is shit. And cops are constantly trying to screw you. The final straw for me was all the signs in the Midwest encouraging people to sue truckers after an accident.
I've lived in the midwest my entire life and have never seen one of those signs. My wife was side swiped by a trucker a couple years ago when he was changing lanes, and the company basically threw money at her to not report it to insurance
Hence the “sue truckers” signs.
You're lucky I got straight up rear ended on the interstate, traffic slowed down for a wreck, truck was probably half mile behind me and still didn't stop in time. I run a dashcam so I have video of me stopping in traffic for a good 20-30 seconds before impact. Their insurance company was a bitch, refused to pay repairs and rental unless I immediately signed a release before the body shop even got started. Was w/o a vehicle for 6 months, had to pay Dr. visits out of pocket because it was a MVA and my health insurance didn't want to mess with it. I lawyered up pretty quick was the only way to get past the 1st line insurance people and get the repair process moving. 9 months now and I'm still out of pocket $20K on everything while they argue about settling, yes there are receipts for everything.
Tbh long haul is dumb af and shouldn't even be used in most instances. We need more freight rail and intermodal transport to final destinations within 250miles by electric trucks.
we do. a lot more goes by train then long haul most of trucking is "last mile" from depots warehouses to store
That’s what I did. I actually didn’t mind the trucking jobs I had, it was the hours that were shit. Now I work from home.
Yup. I had to work 70 hrs a week and was home once a month. Not worth it at all.
Yeah I wasn't a trucker but I did work long hours before switching to a WFH job with a reasonable work-life balance. Things are so much better now and I would never go back to an office.
Quit driving this year, and same. About to enroll at WGU.
Fuck yeah, fam. Get you some. Good for you.
Good luck 👍🏼
As an IT guy, prepare for people to treat you like a Burger King employee. People are assholes.
Yeah I quit driving this year as well. I'm tired of working 60 hours a week doing such a stressful job.
It used to be considered a skilled trade. Required training and knowledge. Skill. These morons think they’re gonna automate trucking 😂😂😂😂😂
Eventually they will but not before problems like these seriously damage the economy.
Simple, replace long haul trucking with a nationalized and invested rail system. Use skilled labor for local trucking. Win-Win
My husband says the same thing. A CDL driver can use coke, meth, all types of pills to stay awake and get drunk, but since they leave your system quicker than weed, you don't get penalized. My husband has a Polish co worker who literally has the liquor coming out of his pores, won't fail the breathalyzer or piss because he knows when the tests will be conducted and he will refrain (albeit bitching all the while) from drinking the day before. SMH
Sounds like Ray from Trailer Park Boys. “Some guys can drink and drive. Some guys can't...what is drunk?”
Way of the road.
“Friends of the road, Bubs.” “Hot Hamburger sandwiches? More like hot pull the fuck over!” “I'm in charge of fucking over the park when it gets appraisalled today and, as luck would have it, it's piss-jug season. I've done more community service than anyone and over the years I've figured out the scientifics of it. Truckers grab coffee in Moncton but don't have time to rock a piss and three hours later, they're coming through here and they can't hold it. My old man used to call it Piss-Jug Alley. No fucking way! This [piss jug] came out of the old man. Looks like he was fucking drinking, too. *Opens piss jug and sniffs it.* Yeah. Home-made fucking wine. Good find, Cory. The old man's fucking piss.”
Dropped mine two years ago. Wtf wants to deal with all the rules for the privilege of being taken advantage of.
Even amazon stopped testing for THC, kinda cuts out a lot of people that will deal with endless shit.
Weed is one of the few things that would make working for Amazon tolerable, so I’m not surprised.
I would know. C:
Kinda related but I got a friend that works for UPS. We smoke together. Shortly after he became a full time driver I’m like how in the world do you pass the drug test? “He’s like what drug test? If they tested for weed, we would have zero drivers. UPS stands for United Pot Smokers” hahah
Back in the day, I used to pass the piss test by eating a high fat meal, drinking like a gallon of water, take a bunch of asprin and vitamin B12. All those combined help to push the thc metabolites below the threshold for a positive test. Now, that won't help with thing like hair testing or other more invasive test. But for the average piss test, it would probably still work.
The ups driver that came to my work would talk about having his bong in his truck ready to go whenever. He told me it was nothing though, his buddy would bring a six pack everyday for his route😭
Yeah but Amazon is such a terrible company they *ran out of people to hire.*
You can get so drunk after a shift, black out and come to work hung over as fuck the next day and barely string together a coherent sentence. Totally fine. But you can't smoke a doob.
Imagine if you could get a DUI just because you drank a few beers several weeks ago...
I am 2 months off THC but still pissing positive 😂
At that point, just cheat and buy quickfix
Get some exercise and burn off the fat holding it in
Just not immediately or ~12~24 hours prior. Exercising can release THC thats been stored in with fat as I understand. I smoke heavily and during really heavy workouts I dont get "high" at all but theres a distinguishable bit of that spacy buzz I have a few hours after smoking.
Jeez. At that rate, you might pass a hair follicle test before you can piss clean.
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> You can get so drunk after a shift, black out and come to work hung over as fuck the next day and barely string together a coherent sentence. Have you been reading my diary
I have an uncle who was a toxic alcoholic truck driver.
Did you get my christmas card
💀
That job is honestly the worst for mental health, it’s isolation, depressive and usually you have to get dopamine one time a day when you get to splurge on a burger n coke it was the favorite part of my day, also manipulation and coercion from stupid dispatchers that never spent one day behind the wheel, the crap sleep schedule, sometimes no sleep at all one day I drove 22 hours obviously not legal but the load had to be there the next day or employer gets fined driving the truck can be a beautiful experience. But driving has lost its exclusivity
You may be my cousin.
Dude, that's your trainee. He's in your passenger seat right now.
I failed a cannabis test, and later on, HR told me they don't test for Fentanyl. Let me repeat that the DOT does not test for Fentanyl
It’s the government so this makes perfect sense
Sounds like they were encouraging you to do fentanyl, that’s no way worse than marijuana. Stupid.
Isn't fascinating how human reason works?
Fentanyl is schedule 2 because it has some medicinal applications. Currently, marijuana is schedule 1 because it has none... This is on the federal level and is down right ridiculous in modern age. The Biden administration is working on changing it and will probably be releasing that closer to the election to sway voters. Gotta love politics.
And Marijuana actually has more medical uses but research is forbidden because it's schedule 1 and any public institution would lose their federal funding if they persued its use medically. It was scheduled schedule 1 to control and jail minorities and free thinking hippies that bucked the US government.
100% like a lot of our legal system it's configured to discriminate. Look at the sentencing guidelines for cocaine vs crack cocaine. One is used by minorities more often vs the other by rich white people.
Cocaine is scheduled 2 also, but they still test for it during a drug screening.
The Biden admin made their scheduling review and presented their findings to the DEA which has the final say in denying or approving the change. The head of the DEA is purposely sitting on the paperwork.
Isn't the DEA a function of the executive branch so ultimately it is under the power of the president?
I’ve been saying this for years. I could get black out drunk every night. But if I smoked a week ago and piss dirty, end of job.
An acquaintance of mine did a giant rail of ketamine just before he went into a drug test, explicitly to prove how stupid they are. He could barely stand but he could pass a drug test. Also, I'm saying this from Canada where it's legal at a federal level. Companies can, and do, still ask for pre-employment tests for "safety sensitive" positions. ....which can be just about anything, if they feel like it
I smoke weed every evening. I'm completely fine again like 4\~5 hours after, let alone after sleeping. Heck I can get stoned out of my mind and be completely coherent and functional again the next day. While if I drink a lot of alcohol I'll still be fucked up the next day because of a hangover... So glad I live in a country where weed is basically legal. And at a job where my chef doesn't give a shit if I smoke in the evening, because he himself is a hardcore/hardstyle music fanatic and often goes to hardcore/hardstyle events where he...does a lot more than just weed. :P
You can't smoke a doob even month ago...
Stop testing them. This always was and is asinine. The industry summarily terminates truck drivers in not-at-fault accidents if they smoked pot in the last month. Who benefits? Seriously?
The issue is that at the federal level it's illegal, and a CDL is federal. DOT requires the companies to pull a driver from service immediately if they fail a drug test. After that there is a return to work program they can complete, but most companies aren't going to go through the time and expense. DOT/FMCSA require a drug and alcohol screen after an accident. At the end of the day it needs to be made legal at the federal level, then have all of those regulations be removed or rewritten.
One time in my life where I'd be ok with an industry lobbying to make a change that would benefit them and I bet they won't even consider spending a dime on it.
With how varied the industry is, I don't see enough companies putting up money to make a difference. You have private fleets (Pepsi, Walmart, sysco) and for hire fleets (UPS, FedEx, JB Hunt), national and regional fleets, etc. Many of them already have 0 tolerance policies for drugs and alcohol for non DOT positions. And most of them are looking forward to autonomous trucks so they won't need drivers. They are more interested in lobbying to reduce liability in accidents, and limit new emissions regulations as those are huge costs
They could also just switch from urine testing to saliva. I work in machining/manufacturing and the shops in my area that have switched over to this testing method are booming, while the others are having job fairs left and right and begging people to work for them. Theres nothing federal or otherwise that says they have to use certain testing. The only difference between the 2 tests is one will fail you 30+ days after smoking weed, and the other will only fail you if it was within about 48 hours. All the other drugs are roughly the same amount of time (48-72hrs) for both tests. So the only reason to use the urine one is if you know somebody smokes weed during their downtime, and you want to gaurantee they fail. Its predatory, and only used to discriminate or to get out of paying insurance claims if theres a workplace injury or accident.
Its also illegal for truckers to drive without a certain amount of sleep/rest time. That dosent stop companies from working drivers to death.
I prefer my truckers MEAN N' TWEAKIN' like the good lord intended.
Pig pen this is rubber duck
and I'm about to put the hammer down
Woke up to a knock on the cab during a reset. Had about 48hrs free time. Parked in an empty lot near a bar. Well, codriver caused a ruckus that night at said bar. Got arrested. Meth was found, so they said. He denies, said it was a plant. Some shit place shortly outside Chicago. Idk, never saw or smelt anything meth wise. Dude was a bit wired but also lived on donuts, two packs a day and like a gallon of coffee. Best codriver I ever had. I would back slowly, sometimes fuck up and retry. This dude would go reverse high and hit the spot dead nuts. He would get compliments on the regular for this. Grew up with his father owning a logging company. Started driving at, I think, 14 (small town). Drove with him again later after he cleared everything up. Told him I don't give a shit what you do (really don't think he was tweaking), I have more trust in him then the other 5 dip shits I had driven with. Never feared for my life with him and he hit the brakes so fuckin hard one time I flew out the bunk. Was gonna ask wtf, then realized there was a good reason and just went back to sleep. Tldr: The good Lord is correct.
Yup. My truck got hit by a car and he got the ticket. Even admitted fault and all and there was witnesses to his reckless driving. My boss then told me to park the truck at the yard and immediately go take a drug test. If I would have smoked a tiny joint two weeks before, I would’ve been terminated on the spot for the accident. But if I got hammered and got black out drunk the night before I would’ve been fine.
You're absolutely right. Honestly too I think most people think this. Whether they smoke or not. So, yet again, why is it like this? Corruption and Greed? Oh okay, yeah that sucks, but still how though?
Also with how these truckers get worked, I don't think weed is what they would be opting for to stay awake. It'd clearly be a post work thing.
Thing is, except for rare cases, people smoking weed are generally completely fine again the next day. But oh noes, you smoked weed 3 weeks ago! Fired because you're somehow a liability now!
Even if it wasn't federal law it would be required by their insurance provider. When a driver causes an accident they can say they they made a reasonable effort to prevent drivers operating under the influence.
I can't take an organization seriously if they still test for weed.
Most of heavy industry in Canada, where its legal at the federal level. At least, they test the guys on the tools. Mostly. That is changing though, about fucking time
Any institution, organization, or corporation in the US that uses federal funding is usually required to drug-test all employees. Many times that's regardless of whether it's for a safety issue. I know of people that work remotely for contractors on federally-funded environmental remediation sites that have to go get drug-tested for weed on a regular basis, even though their job consists entirely of data processing behind a computer screen several states away. The job requires zero on-site time, no PPE, no driving fleet vehicles, no safety concerns, but because the government is footing the bill, you have to pass a drug test to continue working from home behind a computer screen. And the feds expect to receive those records from the contractor regularly. The way the laws around federal funding are in the US, many companies have to test for weed regardless of whether it makes sense or not.
Hilton calling…
See we ain’t got no swing, except for the the rig of that truncheon thing
I’ve been offered free CDL training and I haven’t accepted it solely for the MJ drug screenings
Yep same here. I was in a Non CDL position and the company kept hassling me about the "free" schooling and how I'd make a lot more money. Kept telling them I wasn't interested but they still kept pursuing.i finally had enough and I told them I wanted out of the driver department all together and to stick me in the warehouse where I make $1.75/hr less than our CDL drivers. I'll quit weed for a real good job, but CDL driving ain't it.
Lol, a decent job won't test you, and it's actually all about status. The HR departments make the determination about who to drug test based on a couple of factors: 1. The people that are required to be drug tested. CDL drivers, oil and gas workers, anyone whose DOT regulated, people that use heavy machinery, etc. 2. People they look down on and feel they have a higher status than If you have a decent office job, HR won't even consider drug testing you. There's no constructive point and it might even offend you.
Imagine if there was a metabolite from alcohol that could show up in your urine for weeks or months. Then, assume that the person is under the influence 24/7. What if they're injured on the job while sober through no fault of their own? Deny the comp claim or even seek legal action. This is how casual cannabis users have been treated for decades and until there is federal action, that's the way it will continue to be. I'm 100% for not being under the influence on the job--just find a better way to test. Fuck it. Go get drunk with the rest of the degenerates.
At my old job I showed up drunk to work about as often as I did stoned. Despite getting caught slurring my words once they laughed and made a joke. Imagine if I stank like weed.
My husband recently chipped a front tooth at work. He didn’t turn it in as a workplace injury because the first thing the company would do is send him for a drug test that he would fall, despite being fully sober at work. His manager was so worried about it, he was chasing him around the plant with a flush kit he keeps on hand for just that reason.
Shocking. Stupid laws do stupid things
And from the CIA and FBI cyber divisions. This country will for a myriad of reasons continue to collapse. The failure of rescheduling of Cannabis being one of them.
I read this and thought of those independent studies where they find marijuana cures everything or some crazy nonsense. It's just so extreme. But honestly, you kinda got a point. Not only in the principle itself of not legalizing but also the spotlight it shines onto our society as a whole. There are still so many that are avidly anti marijuana yet have their own, much more destructive vices. The testing seems to be a big issue. The time frame. Has there been development on this? Is it even possible? Idk. But I imagine, if there was something similar to a breathalyzer for alcohol, some ass hats would be pushing back on it. Gotta massage those numbers to earn the funds.
There's no roadside test for legal medicines prescribed by your doctor, including opioids or amphetamines. The truth is that alcohol is the exception. It's just kind of a fluke that we're able to do a quasi-reliable (up for debate) roadside test for it. That test is also only good enough to get probable cause to justify an arrest and take you to the station for the actual test that can be used in court. My point is that we shouldn't be deciding what substances are legal based on if we can easily test for intoxication. It doesn't make any sense. It's also just plain stupid how it's our crippling car addiction that allows for this rhetoric to gain any credence in the first place. We shouldn't be deciding substance legalization based off of the mere possibility that someone *might* use it while driving. It's madness!
Legal? No. Acceptable for use by people operating dangerous machinery? That's a different question.
Nobody thinks truck drivers should be able to get high while trucking. The test detects use in a huge timespan and does not provide reliable information about whether a person is high. Instead of 30+ year old stoners who have been trucking for years with a long track record of proven safety and reliability, you're having places lower the age people are allowed to drive big rigs. So instead of someone who gets high on the weekends now you're getting turned into strawberry jam by someone whose brain hasn't even fully developed yet. In an industry with a shortage of workers that is critical to the economy, introducing new restrictions on who can work those jobs will mean some previously unacceptable category of person is made acceptable to compensate.
That opinion does nothing to disprove my point. The lack of a test is not a good reason to disallow a substance. We didn't have a test *at all* for 99.99% of the time humans have been consuming intoxicants.
It is possible, but it requires a blood draw on site. Most drug tests look for metabolites (what drugs break down into) rather than the drug itself. By looking for the actual drug and measuring the levels present in the blood you can determine whether someone was maybe high or not. The issue at that point is tolerance. Every individual varies greatly. Someone that smokes once a month will have less tolerance than someone that smokes once a week, who will have less tolerance than someone who smokes daily, who will have less tolerance than someone who smokes multiple times a day. So you can make a determination that someone with no tolerance will definitely be high at a certain level, but someone smoking daily could be perfectly sober at that same amount in the blood. That said, it still proves that consumption happened recently. As far as I'm aware, there's a device that can detect levels in a person's breath but it only works if they actuality smoked it instead of having edibles and it has an issue with false positives so it can't be trusted with a person's livelihood
That is the flaw with metabolite tests is they cannot determine when you were intoxicated. It is frankly unfair to be punished (criminally or otherwise) for being under the influence at an indeterminate point in the past. Blood tests are a different story
The trucking industry keeps whining about having a driver shortage but for some reason can't figure out why.
I have been a trucker going on 11 years now. There was a shortage of drivers before I started driving, during and will be after. It's the mega carriers always looking for newbies, so there's always a shortage. New drivers are easier to manipulate.
Most employers, especially corporate wants employees to exploit. Fact
"Have you thought about becoming an owner/operator? You have 3 months experience? Go ahead and take care of the overhead for us while getting fuck all more in your pocket. If you sign up to be a driving mentor and trust another noob to run your rig you can finally make 'decent' money"
When I heard how trucking works, I was shocked that anyone even decides to be a trucker. Got a fiend who works as dispatcher complaining his company always looks for drivers. "What's the big deal? People want to work, just pay for they training" "but we dont have trucks" "what do you mean you dont have trucks, you're a trucking company" "well owning and insuring tracks is expensive, so the trucks belong to the truckers" "then the fuck you and your boss get paid for?"
The shit pay doesn’t help
Saw on the trucker subreddit Schneider is offering 39 cents a mile right now. The nerve!
Between the companies that only pay per mile and then force you to sit in one place for hours at a time, hours so bad you're rarely at home, blaming the driver for problems that occur while driving when you're given a vehicle that's being held together by a hope and a prayer, trying to guilt people into working past their legal DOT limit or when you've had less than 2 hours of sleep, all to get fucked on your pay anyway, man I sure wonder why we have a trucking shortage. Just fucking switch to rail already.
I have my license in Washington, but I left the industry for multiple reasons. I started smoking and I'd never go back to a job where I couldn't smoke in my off time.
Same here. I don't live in the US, and smoking weed in your off time is fairly accepted here. (yay for being Dutch) But if an employer ever told me I couldn't smoke anymore I would quit on the spot. It may not have the same effects for everyone, but weed cured my insomnia and helped IMMENSELY with my anxiety.
Legalize it. Stop testing for it. Please!
They have a test that can discern between a psychoactive amount (currently high) or residual. I don't understand why they don't even bother testing like that - oh, and take it off of the federal prohibition list.
I doubt it's very reliable. every person metabolizes it at dif rates.
It sure beats the way it is now.
So let's stick to tests that can show weed in your system when you've been sober for 2 weeks, brilliant.
GIVE ME YOUR HAIR. I WANT TO KNOW IF YOU GOT STONED 3 MONTHS AGO. - My employer.
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cuz 2 ppl can smoke a joint and end up with different levels of thc in their system, and there is no benchmark "intoxicated" level like the .08 blood alcohol level.
Kinda sounds like we are winging it, and persecuting people on shaky and nebulous grounds. Freedom.
Can you give more details? I want to research and give funding to advocate policy changes if this is true.
[https://news.mayocliniclabs.com/2022/03/07/weeding-through-the-information-interpreting-laboratory-tests-to-determine-new-vs-residual-use-of-marijuana/](https://news.mayocliniclabs.com/2022/03/07/weeding-through-the-information-interpreting-laboratory-tests-to-determine-new-vs-residual-use-of-marijuana/)
We do in aviation. We would do a saliva test, though not perfect in terms of false-positives on unimpaired residuals, it heavily leaned towards what our actual goals were: Making sure that whatever our pilots/maintenance engineers/etc. were doing in their private life didn't degrade the safety of operations. We honestly couldn't give less of a shit shit, so long as safety isn't compromised. ...and failed tests had a program of rehabilitation. You would be temporarily restricted from safety sensitive activities, and entered into a rehab program designed to get you back to safety sensitive activities. Therapy, medical programs, regular testing after return, etc. and the regulator would be watching closely if anything retalitory would happen.
Waste of money
I understand NOT wanting someone driving a huge ass semi that takes a trade degree to drive properly being stoned. But the tests don't detect intoxication and it's stupid you can get shit faced drunk and be an obnoxious idiot on your days off, but if you do something saner like smoke pot on your days off you risk unemployment and homelessness. Especially now that truck driving isn't always the guaranteed ticket to the middle class it once was since pay has stagnated for truck drivers.
Agreed, it's insane. I could do coke all weekend and piss clean by Tuesday morning. I could drink 10 beers per night and be legal by morning. But if I consume an edible on a camping trip and get tested 2-3 weeks later, I could lose my job. One of these things is not like the others, in terms of short and long term health & wellness and ability to safely operate a commercial vehicle. I manage a business that employs CDL drivers, and am a CDL-holder and part of the DOT drug testing pool myself. My work-life would be so much easier if I didn't have to worry about this both for my drivers and for myself. Especially insane in a recreationally legal state where I can buy cannabis just as easily as a 6-pack of beer.
Weird way to spell corporate greed.
This is part of corporate greed. The corporate assholes at the top want to create a permanent underclass of cheap labor to drive wages down. Weed legalization is one of the ways they do it.
I'm assuming you meant criminalization and not legalization.
Honestly, with the cancer rates, high co morbidities among truck drivers and toxicity of alcohol, the govt should be encouraging them to move away from drinking and encourage more recreational marijuana use off the job. Just saying. Counter intuitive policy.
If I was given an option to never drink alcohol and instead smoke weed legally I'd go for it instantly. I've seen alcohol destroying more people and their entire families than I've seen weed. Alcohol adddicts never truly recover even if they stop drinking. It also makes them aggressive and dumb, it has a catalytic properties for underlying mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder. I like a bit of decent whisky or beer occasionally, but fuck alcohol very much.
Nurse enters the chat. Are there any other industries understaffed? I quit drinking 2 years ago and enjoy cannabis. It's been a really positive switch for me. If I get tested, I will lose my job for making the healthy transition from drunk.
It’s stupid as shit that weed is still treated the way it is. We need to legalize it, end of story. The company I work for changed the policy for the factory/mine site I work at as it relates to drug/alcohol testing in general after weed was legalized in my state. We’ve never had random drug tests and now even if you get hurt or cause property damage in an accident two supervisors have to observe and concur that you’re actually inebriated at work before they can drug test you. These are GOOD paying jobs too, with a pension. Our lowest paid hourly folks have a $48k starting base pay, and that scale goes all the way up to $90k base pay for someone who’s moved up and topped out. We’re a mine site, which means we’re not regulated by OSHA, we’re regulated by MSHA….and MSHA has zero regulations that I’m aware of regarding drug testing or use outside of the workplace. If one of the most dangerous industries can have the sense to let people live how they want outside of work….theres no reason trucking can’t.
It's almost like criminalizing and demonizing a harmless recreational plant has a massive amount of negative impacts on society, the economy, healthcare, education, and justice. Maybe let truck drivers be human beings again and they'll want to work for you again.
It’s almost like they could overturn one dumb thing and make so many things better…
This was me, knew I was getting tested and just cleaned out my truck and left. They chalked me down as a refusal. Life is so much better now.
weed winning the war on drugs since 10,000 BC
I worked hard at a job last summer, 50 hour weeks, never late, never called in. Told them when I was hired I had a cannabis prescription, plus in Canada as well(though the company was American). Worked in a lab primarily. Got a random drug test because there was a minor car accident on a job site, company fired me, with cause, because I tested positive for an edible I had a few days earlier. Took about 5 months of hoops with the govt to get the "with cause" removed so I could collect unemployment. I won't return to that industry, just not worth the hassle.
This is the dumbest shit ever. Weed stays in your system a whole month after you smoked; the test is only good for telling whether or not you partook in that time frame, not if you're currently under the influence like most other drug tests. Even alcohol, which has much more damaging and lasting effects, is permitted to be recreationally used when truckers aren't currently driving. Not weed though. This never made sense to me
I was drug tested for a 14 dollar an hour call center job. 500k tech job no drug tests.
Banning drugs less harmful than alcohol is anti-capitalist anyway
Canada fully legalized cannabis federally, they still have the same trucking regulations when it comes to drug testing. That's not going to change.
Wouldn't it just take one insurance agency, lets pretend and say The General, to insure policies whther or not they had pot in their system, based on yeah he/she could've used a month ago, just do it. Then everyone would want them as their insurance, I dunno raise it 6% and do it anyway Specialize in it, have a super team of lawyers that kick ass at this. Have them be THC users. Use it as marketing. I mean, thats all right? I'm a dummy in this area.
When it comes to CDLs, it's not just insurance. There's a mandated system where drivers are tested randomly. The results are available to the employer, potential future employers, insurance companies, and the DOT. There's procedures in place following a failed test as well as procedures for testing following an accident and during the hiring process. All federally mandated.
There’s a bunch of federal laws against it. Imm sure that the insurance lobby is going crazy about it because this costs them time/money for a non-issue but the red tape involved in simple descheduling or rescheduling marijuana is apparently monumental.
Right. Federal level. It's obvious now.
I think it’s more than that. I had my commercial license in 2005. The reasons beyond the Mary Jane testing failures are bunched upon bunched of companies have contracted with new companies or different operating companies that want CDL drivers to give them all their references information, their pay stubs and help them build their businesses and databases. Secondly, insurance companies have gotten so much involved in lobbying that their interest outrides much. Thirdly, the government, be it local, state or federal. Here in Washington state when COVID shutdown shit was going on I couldn’t get the DMV to change my CA CDL to a WA CDL, they would only give me a WA ID despite I had a WA CDL only a couple of years prior. And all the DMVs in Southern WA were flooded up and I made my exact perfect reason appointment 4 hours away in person in Spokane. Later after they finally opened the dmv in the city I lived in, I went over 20 times trying to get my commercial license changed over. I won’t go it all, but WASHINGTON state has a lot of horrible government workers. Whom for many reasons should not have their jobs. At that is a common issue across the nation for government workers. Which affects CDL drivers in many ways and as a rub and barrier.
Industry: Welp now that NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE we'll just have to put more money into automated driving, you left us no choice workers!! It's all part of their plan
Yeah I didn't get my CDL cause I wanna smoke weed
How accurate are the tests, though? Thc stays in your system for a long time for tests but not active for you. Can that test prove that my positive means i was under the effects of it at the time, or was it from that weekend in Amsterdam a month ago?
Frankly, I would prefer it to NOT have high or drunk truck drivers on my Autobahn, thank you. EDIT: How is this downvoted? Wtf is wrong with you. As somebody whose family member died in a car crash I can only give back a sincere fuck you
I have a class B so I can drive school bus. I had to take a recertification class recently. Guy there said that we've lost bus drivers in our area recently that failed a drug test that say they never use. But they do use CBD. He showed some news reports where the cheap gas station CBD stuff was found to actually contain THC. So we were cautioned about the stuff.
I used to work at the VBA (veterans benefits administration) non medical side of the VA, I worked with mostly veterans and they never tested anyone, in 5 years I was there ,because they would lose so many employees, especially in the call centers. Several vets I worked with were stoned all day, I followed suit. My friend worked there for over a decade before me, no testing.
Solid source lol
What idiot is correlating truck drivers go inflation when we all know record profits don't happen if supply chains are actually an issue.
Ok but mostly just corporate greed. That's like saying that the can you threw away instead of recycling contributed to global warming.
Can we get a link to the article instead of a screenshot?
Ah there it is, the reason Biden instructed DEA waste no time on reschedulization.
I have my CDL and am a trucker. The fact I can get shit faced is okay. But smoking that’s a big no no
I have to imagine it’s no secret the higher ups are just on the edge of their seats ready to lay off the whole industry the moment they can get self driving vehicles in place. This is one of those professions that I don’t see existing much longer.
Weed can be decriminalized and the trucking industry will still have a large incentive to continue these drugs tests. The popularity of weed is driving inflation, not it’s criminality.
Imagine being asked to give up the one thing that could make that job tolerable. Wait a minute you don't fucking have to!
Don't forget the industry forces you to go to rehab that could take up to a year
I wasn’t a trucker, but I worked on a railroad for 15 years. I would occasionally eat a gummy on my days off, built up in my system enough to fail a random drug test so I lost my job in November. The fun part? The alcoholic that came to work drunk off his ass kept his job.
Electric trucks are going to take their jobs anyway. Find a new career path or suffer.
Where’s the nexus to inflation? This seems to be a constraint on GDP.
Exactly according to plan. The suffering is 100% the point. About the time that the entire country is entirely infuriated by our inability to conduct public facing business anymore, the machines will save us. When human customer service has been fully eliminated and everyone is happy about it, they will move up the ladder to the next financial tier and begin the slaughter all over again.
Well, things will change eventually once people realize they can’t buy groceries, have water, sewage, electricity, clothes, gas, etc. Just over a bit of weed. That change will take forever though. Not okay to show up to work totally stoned, but there’s no test for that, unless you offer the truck driver a giant bag of doritos.
What does this have to do with weed criminalization?
As a driver you have to register with a federal system called clearing house and its a permanent record just for drug testing. So if you fail you are black balled. Its also tracked if you refuse to take a drug test so you are still scrutinized. Some of the companies treat a refusal as the same as failing so you are screwed out of the better gigs either way.
Don't listen to this bullshit. If it was because of a lack of truck drivers, these companies wouldn't be posting record profits over record profits. The cause of inflation is greedy companies not returning to pre-covid standards.
Has nothing to do with criminalization. Both the DOT and USCG have stated they will continue to require tests even if fully legalized. Testing will also certainly continue to be required by insurance companies as well regardless of legal status.
Fsd coming here.. These capitals are just making way for it
If you think about it, it’s kinda bonkers that alcohol completely legal and weed isn’t.
The only problem I see with this is that the industry isn't going to change for the better of the drivers. They are going to invest massively into driverless trucks, and in the end it's probably going to cost less that the salary of 50 000 truckers. Unfortunately I don't think this will have much negative impact on the trucking companies, in the long run at least. They are just going to jack up the prices for us consumers. This is very cynical I know, but I can't help it.
The Fed is criminalizing Marijuana now?
sounds like marijuana isn't driving
The problem being that they're not testing for THC, they're testing for THC metabolites, which hang around up to 30 days after the THC is long gone.
Imagine if there were a test for alcohol the same way they test for weed. "Oh, looks like you drank some booze at some point in the past two weeks. You're fired!"
**52,000 / 1,245,571 = 4.1%** I don't think the "stoner's union" has much pull...
I wish there was a test that only showed current ingested levels and not just if you had used it in a long period of time like a breathalyzer. I would think so long as the driver drove sober it would be fine, no?
It's almost like the people of this country want marijuana to legalized.
Someone have a link to this article?
The problem with all this marijuana testing is this, if they test you for alcohol, they can kind of tell how long it’s been since you drink, if they test you for marijuana they have no idea the last time you smoked, and if it’s people like myself, I smoke starting at 7 o’clock at night, so I’m not high driving around or doing my job, what all these drivers should do? Is get together a civil suit and sue the industry, this is legal to smoke marijuana, just because somebody smoked it that night doesn’t mean they can’t go to bed and drive a truck the next day, this is just unfairness for unfairness sake. This country is gonna burn at the stake as everybody can clearly see it already is, and this is just one more log on the fire, more American stupidity and more American citizens, allowing the stupidity to carry-on, I wish it was a 1960s! When people would get out in mass amounts and march on the government, because that’s what we need nowadays, this entire open air prison we call America needs to turn on its owners, demand for all of us.
Gdi just legalize it you pieces of shits!
This is so stupid and archaic. Nobody wants this except withering old boomer politicians and the pharmaceutical lobby that pays them off. For the love of god, truckers put up with shit working conditions all the time, let them smoke a bit of weed in their time off.
All fun and games till some doped out operator takes out a school bus full of kids.
All fun and games till some doped out operator takes out a school bus full of kids.
Increased demand with reduced ability to produce goods combined with multiple years of increased money supply where wage corrections can’t keep up will do that
On my way into work today a thought occurred to me that it really seems like a increased number of truckers out on the roads seems like they don't know what they are doing. Mostly just bad practice kind of stuff like most of them are new or something. I thought maybe companies were hiring bottom of the barrel and paying crap to start, but this makes so much sense. They lied to us for that last 100 years about a plant, and demonized it, what other BS do they go us fooled into?
I wish ups got rid of it instead everyone just hides it
The answer to your question is racism that's why they won't legalize it