Entrepreneurs and marijuana: “The problem is now ours”
Foreign companies show concern about the law regulating marijuana
Several foreign companies, some of them multinational corporations, express their concern to the National Chamber of Commerce and Services (CNCS) since they understand the law that regulated the production and consumption of marijuana “damages their rights” regarding actions to be taken in case of workers performing their duties under the influence of cannabis, said to El Observador Claudio Piacenza, President of such Institution.
A legal document of the Chamber of Commerce expresses that the Law contains “endless contradictions”. It points out that “Article 40 of the law makes reference to the prohibition of smoking or keeping cannabis lighted on “inside closed environments which are working places. Taxis, ambulances, school buses and other public means of transport such as buses, trains, ships, airplanes, etc., with or without passengers, are included in the spectrum of such working places”.
The entrepreneurs indicate in the document that “besides, according to dispositions of article41, all drivers whose ability is affected by the consumption of psychoactive cannabis are not allowed to drive any category of vehicles on the public road. Such solution should be applicable to the working areas, disabling from working those people whose abilities are influenced by cannabis consumption”.
However, they state that the decree “instead of penalizing the cannabis consumption in the working areas as a serious offence, it contemplates it and transfers to the entrepreneurs the problematic use of cannabis of its workers. The obligation should be of the State according to dispositions of article 44 of Constitution which reads: “The Government shall rule all the matters regarding public health and hygiene, catering for the physical, moral and social perfection of all inhabitants of the country”.
According to El Observador, the huge agricultural company Monsanto and the Chilean-French cellulose plant Montes del Plata are some of the companies involved.
The executive board of the CNS said that most of the foreign companies settled in the country already use “safety and hygiene working protocols” as a tool to be applied to this matter, which contradict the approved Law.
At least one of the reporting parties is represented by the law firm Hughes & Hughes.
Such Law includes three ways of having access to marijuana: self-cultivation, purchase in pharmacies and through club memberships. The Regulatory Decree establishes that the ways of having access to the drug are restrictive: users must choose only one way of access. In all cases, users must be registered in the Institute of Regulation and Control of Cannabis (IRCCA), as per the Law.
The union power
Article 42 of the Regulatory Decree of the Law expressly prescribes that “smoking, keeping lighted on, consuming or drinking cannabis products during the working days is prohibited, whether in working places or in working hours and in general during the times the workers are on duty”. It also establishes the prohibition of working under the cannabis influence.
But the problem appears when penalizing the offender, since the Law anticipates the creation of “Bipartite Committees of safety and health in the working places” and the union power starts to interfere. The Law establishes that in “in those cases such committee is not operating, such committee shall be integrated by the workers union or by the industrial union itself.”
