Home Depot To End Marijuana Testing, Limit Screening For Most Employees, Internal Memo Reveals

Home Depot Inc HD, one of the U.S.’s largest employers, is planning to do away with marijuana testing for prospective employees and discontinue drug testing for the majority of its workforce.

The big box retailer, which employs some 400,000 people in more than 2,000 locations around the country, announced internally on Monday that "marijuana will be removed from all drug panels" throughout the company's U.S.-based operations, according to a memo obtained by Marijuana Moment. The changes are set to take effect on Sept. 1.

According to the document, cannabis will be eliminated from all drug panels in the U.S., including tests conducted after workplace accidents or when there's reasonable suspicion of employee impairment, although workers regulated by the Department of Transportation will not be affected by these changes.

Home Depot circulated the memo from the human resources department to staffers.

"Home Depot continually evaluates our policies, the external environment, and benchmarks with other companies to ensure we remain competitive while complying with local, state, and federal laws," read the memo, the contents of which were reportedly first circulated on a Home Depot-linked Reddit forum.

Biggest Company So Far To Eliminate Cannabis Screening

The new initiative makes Home Depot one of the largest private companies in the country to do away with screening for cannabis.

Amazon, with a global workforce of 1.5 million people, made headlines in 2021 when it announced it would stop testing many of its employees for marijuana and pledged to lobby Washington for cannabis reform.

Read Also: Do Major Companies Drug Test Employees? A Look At Amazon, Target, McDonald’s, Walmart, Dollar General & More

States Also Taking On Drug Testing Reforms

Some states have passed legislation designed to shield workers from disciplinary action for consuming cannabis.

California barred employers from asking job applicants about past marijuana use, and most companies are barred from penalizing employees over legal weed use when workers are off the clock.

Washington State prohibits companies from refusing to hire someone based on past cannabis use, though the law does not protect employees from penalties incurred as a result of use of marijuana outside of work.

Other states and jurisdictions, including Connecticut, Montana, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C., have expanded their policies to limit cannabis testing for both new hires and existing employees.

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