Amazon has announced that it is changing its drug testing policy at federal level and will no longer check potential hires for some jobs in the US for marijuana consumption.

In a blog post Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon Consumer, said: “We will no longer include marijuana in our comprehensive drug screening program for any positions not regulated by the Department of Transportation, and will instead treat it the same as alcohol use”.

He added the company will continue to do “impairment checks on the job and will test for all drugs and alcohol after any incident”.

Legalise marijuana

As a result of the change, Amazon said it will support The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2021 (MORE Act). The Act would legalise marijuana at the federal level, wipe out criminal records, and invest in communities afected by use of the drug. 

Amazon has previously “disqualified” people from working at Amazon if they tested positive for marijuana use. However, with state laws set to change across the US, it said it has “changed course”. 

However, Amazon does not allow marijuana to be sold on its platform.

Productivity tool

The move comes as the company also announced changes to its “Time off Task” policy, which measures the amount of time employees are logged on to software tools.

The policy’s aim is to “understand whether there are issues with the tools that people use to be productive, and only secondary to identify under-performing employees”. 

“Starting today, we’re now averaging Time off Task over a longer period to ensure that there’s more signal and less noise. The goal is to re-focus the conversations on instances where there are likely true operational issues to resolve”, Clark said.

Further reading: Amazon to integrate Prime Now services onto its main platform