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Ninety-four percent of U.S. adults live in a state where medical cannabis is legal, according to cannabis industry insight platform New Frontier Data, and more than half live in a state where both medical and recreational use is legal. Those recreational activities are
"What employers are struggling with most is that they know there is potential benefit and potential risk that's not going away," says Dr. Brooke Worster, medical care advisor at EO Care, a clinically guided cannabis health and wellness solution for employers. "There is also still a federal line in the sand, so employers are asking themselves, how do we sit in both worlds of giving guidance but also making sure our I's are dotted and T's are crossed."
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While the recreational use of cannabis has been legalized in 23 states, three U.S. territories and D.C., as well as decriminalized in another eight states, there is still
"There is also so much confusion around what cannabis even is," says Dr. Worster. "There are so many pitfalls in terms of how to safely access it or even understand what it is that the general person is interested but often clueless. We have this ability to provide guidance and knowledge instead of putting our heads in the sand here and not talk about it."
While
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"Supporting the proper clinical guided use or non-use of cannabis does not necessarily mean you're advocating cannabis use," he says. "There's still a significant number of companies using smoking cessation programs and yet there are fewer smokers than there are cannabis users in the workforce today. It's about rethinking how we can best help our employees and reach the significant amount of the population who just really need and deserve the guidance."
The largest portion of that demographic are employees who may have been
"Of the billions of dollars spent on cannabis in the United States, we expect that about a third of that is spent on purely medicinal purposes," Bannerman says. "And so we're trying to fill the void for the employers and say your people are using this and they need the same guidance you would give them on other substance-related questions."
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Programs like EO Care provide employees with guidelines and boundaries supported by clinicians on how to responsibly engage with whatever cannabis product an
"There's a difference between using cannabis and being impaired at on the job," says Dr. Worster. "Employers have done it with other controlled substances in the past, it's not impossible to do with cannabis."