Basic human rights are the foundation for every working democracy. Let’s take the right to not be discriminated, or the right to travel freely, and that everybody is innocent until proven guilty. The 1948 Declaration of Human Rights defined things like this and one has reason to believe that most governments are working hard to establish laws for their citizens to guarantee these basic rights. Do these rights also apply to medicinal or recreational cannabis users? Their choice to smoke weed often involves being discriminated and criminalized.

Even though cannabis is getting more and more accepted by lawmakers, and more importantly by the people they represent, the average cannabis smoker has to fear consequences the moment he leaves his home.

Read this article to gain some knowledge about avoiding trouble when having to do with semi-relaxed employers, cops or other people who think it’s a good strategy to separate the good from the evil by using drug tests.

WHO WANTS TO TEST ME?

Companies sometimes require drug test for their job applicants. It is actually quite unclear why they do this. Of course there are jobs that are not very suitable to daily cannabis users, let’s take a truck driver for example. But how does THC negatively affect the jobs of IT guys, paper pushers like lawyers, judges and businessman, or of the guys who work factories, effectively building the foundation of our economy?

Another scenario of being confronted with a drug test is when you operate a vehicle on a public road. It is perfectly understandable that police forces are concerned about the safety of our roads. Generally, we can thank them for this. Loosing a family member or someone you love due to a car accident which involved drugs, including alcohol by the way, must be one tough thing to deal with.

The problem is, the drug tests the police commonly uses don’t accurately reflect the ability of someone to operate a car. These tests don’t provide proof for the active ingredient THC, but for the metabolized form, THC-COOH.

It’s actually very questionable if the driver was under the active influence of THC when he got tested, or if he smoked a joint at a party 4 days ago and therefore is not affected by cannabis at all. It would be a beneficial for both the police, and the people who chose to smoke cannabis, if a more precise method of evaluating the soberness would be implemented in traffic laws. Maybe this would help to avoid cannabis smokers to simply not give a shit about the rules, because they are more or less tested positive for THC-COOH all the time, despite of the fact if they are high or not.

WHAT EXACTLY DO THEY TEST FOR?

They don’t test for active psychoactive ingredient Delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), they test for THC-COOH, a metabolite of THC that gets produced when the liver breaks down the actual psychoactive ingredient. This means it doesn’t matter much to companies or the police if you have smoked weed recently, they are willing to bust you just for having a metabolite of THC in your system. It’s either over 50ng/ml of THC-COOH in your urine, or under. Not really a method of the 21st century.

This is the same thing, as if they would punish the drivers of luxurious sports cars for having a beer belly, because this clearly indicates they like to have drink from time to time. Reforms in drug policy could also make reforms in traffic law unavoidable, to establish a legal framework that is free of contradictions.

HOW TO AVOID GETTING BUSTED

If there was a simple answer for the mother of all question, “How to avoid getting busted?”, this piece of information would have reached you by now. The situation is rather complex and there is a lot of variables that can make a difference. Here is quick 10 point check-list to avoid this situation in the first place:

1. Don’t offer your workforce to companies that require drug tests.

2. Stop smoking at least 14 days before being tested. Better 30-60 days.

3. Don’t drive while being high, especially when red eyes are visible.

4. Avoid driving on weekend nights when other people are getting drunk.

5. Drive a few km/h over the speed limit. Do not go too slow or too fast.

6. Clean your car on a regular basis and have it in a flawless condition.

7. When being stopped be relaxed, polite and in some way, cooperative.

8. Don’t admit to smoking weed when police asks. Never.

9. Have medicine for your “pollen allergy” in your car.

10. Go with the flow. Try not to drift around too many corners.

Let’s close this blog with a fictional dialogue between a police officer and a cannabis connoisseur, both from Europe. It’s not the big life-hack around getting drug tested but can potentially be an ace up your sleeve.

Police officer: Do you have anything against a drug test on the spot?

Mr. Weedman: Yes Sir, I have a lawyer in the family and he advised me to not agree to urine tests because they can sometimes fail and are not very accurate. If you have the suspicion that I have anything to do with illegal drugs I’m willing to provide my blood for more accurate results and to proof my innocence. I’m only willing to do so if you have the order from a judge because I’m not a big fan of syringes either.

Police officer: Haha, good one! If only all of my “clients” would be this smart. Have a good evening, drive safe, and greet your non-existing family lawyer.

Mr. Weedman: Thanks for doing your job officer. You, too!