First Thursday, September 2026

Okay, our first case this month.

We're only going to talk about two cases.

A marijuana case out of Jersey and a marijuana case out of Florida.

One, a police case.

Another, a fire case, right? See how we do with that? The Jersey case comes out of Jersey City, which has a really crazy and interesting history as it relates to marijuana and public safety employees a little bit of background there we go back to 2021 that's when new jersey uh enacted its uh marijuana law new jersey is a recreational mail and they call it cannabis you know cannabis is good marijuana is bad in new jersey depending on what you call the same stuff um but um you know i'm gonna call it marijuana um for the purposes of this conversation but jersey's a recreational marijuana State, their law was passed in 2021 and legal retail sales started early of 22.

New Jersey's law, similar to New York's law, provides significant employment protections for otherwise lawful cannabis use.

Now, employers can still, under the law, and the statute is very clear about this, employers can prohibit use, possession, or impairment during work hours, right? Of course, an employer can have a zero tolerance drug policy.

An employer can be very clear, right? You can't use, possess, you know, drugs at work or be impaired, right? by marijuana at work.

But the law also says that an employer can't take any adverse action against an employee solely because the employee uses cannabis or tests positive for cannabis metabolizing tests.

So if you use marijuana off-duty, And you go to work and somehow, let's say you're subject to a random testing policy and you test positive for marijuana.

Essentially what that means in New Jersey is the employer can't take any adverse action against you solely based on that positive marijuana test.

Now, if it's a sufficient test, there are other reasons why they might be able to take action.

But random test? That's the rule of New Jersey.

It's the rule of New York.

It's the rule of a lot of recreational marijuana law states.

The question is, hey, well, does this in New Jersey, do these standards apply? I know they apply it more to Walmart or wherever, but do they apply to a police officer or a firefighter? When New Jersey Attorney General has been very clear that the law, New Jersey laws protections apply to law enforcement officers just like anybody else, right? Sometimes you talk about on a podcast where my second class citizen and I can't do the same things about police officers that other people do.

In some instances, yes.

In other instances, no.

This is a category where the answer is yes.

In New Jersey, the same off-duty recreational marijuana protections that apply to somebody who works at Walmart also apply to a police officer or a firefighter or corrections officer.

So the bottom line in New Jersey is that police officers, just police officers in this case, a police officer can legally move regulated cannabis while off duty.

Okay, so what's the problem? Well, you know, the problem is Jersey City is the problem, actually.

And Jersey City...

The mayor of Jersey City and some of the elected officials in Jersey City just flat out rejected the state's position that police officers could use cannabis off-duty.

Even though the statute was really clear, the mayor said, no, we're not going to take that.