healthmedicinet

More people than ever are getting high from working marijuana amid a wave of legalizations, new data suggests.

By 2022, an analysis of more than six million urine tests from Quest Diagnostics, the world’s largest network of diagnostic laboratories, showed that nearly one in 20 employees tested positive for cannabis, a new record.

That was more than 10 percent more than last year, when nearly four percent of tests came back positive for cannabis.

The industries with the most marijuana users were food service and hospitality, followed closely by retail.

Keith Ward, General Manager and Vice President for Employer Solutions at Quest Diagnostics saidOur 2022 Quest Diagnostics analysis shows that the overall US workforce positivity rate remained at an all-time high in 2022, even as a large portion of the US workforce returned to the office after the pandemic.

“This historic rise appears to be consistent with a sharp increase in marijuana positivity in both pre-employment and post-accident drug testing, suggesting that changing societal attitudes toward marijuana may affect workplace behavior and put colleagues at risk. ‘

The rates at which people use marijuana have increased 54 percent in all industries over the past five years, from a rate of 2.8 percent of workers testing positive for the drug in 2018 to 4.3 percent in 2022, the highest positivity rate for marijuana since 1997.

The latest positivity data has been collected from more than 6.3 million urine tests conducted across the workforce and analyzed by Quest Diagnostics and showed that people who work in both hospitality and hospitality, as well as retail, were the most likely to use cannabis in some form.

THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, can stay in a person’s system for up to a month, so a positive urine test doesn’t necessarily mean the person shows up at work stoned.

But the steady upward trend across all major industries, coinciding with a wave of legalization efforts over the past decade, suggests that more people are using the drug overall, which may include in the workplace.

On the list of industries most likely to have employees who use marijuana, lodging and food service followed transportation and storage, then real estate, and finally wholesale.

By 2022, 6.4 percent of people working in the transportation and warehousing industry—think industries that provide passenger and cargo transportation, warehousing, and warehousing—used marijuana.

This may include getting stoned on the job, though Quest was unable to determine the exact usage dates.

That’s up from 2.4 percent in 2018 – a staggering 167 percent increase in five years.

THC is fat soluble, which means it binds to fat molecules in the body, meaning it can stick around for days or even weeks, depending on the frequency of use. So someone who took the drug on Saturday could test positive on Tuesday.

In 2018, about three percent of real estate agents and rental agents used cannabis, which skyrocketed by 93 percent over the next five years to 5.4 percent in 2022.

Meanwhile, in 2018, 2.4 percent of people who worked in wholesale used the drug. By 2022, the rate was over five percent, an increase of 125 percent.

Marijuana has been embraced by many sectors of the economy as it becomes legal in one form or another in a growing number of states.

The above shows cannabis use in US states. Twenty-one states and DC have legalized it for recreational use in addition to medicinal use, with almost all of them now allowing its use for medicinal purposes.

Cannabis use among those under 30 has now reached an all-time high, data shows. It’s rising in all age groups as more and more states drop restrictions on the drug

Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C. have legalized it for recreational use in addition to medicinal use, while almost all of them now allow it to be used for medicinal purposes.

The states where marijuana is legal for recreational use saw the strongest increases in test positivity rates. In states with legal recreational marijuana, positivity rates rose nearly 12 percent between 2021 and 2022. In states where the drug is only legal for medical purposes, the increase was smaller by about eight percent.

In states where neither recreational nor medical marijuana is legal, positivity rates rose just over three percent year-over-year and nearly 15 percent over five years — 2.7 percent in 2018 versus 3.1 percent in 2022.

Dr. Suhash Harwani, Senior Director of Science for Employer Solutions at Quest Diagnostics said, “Among the general US workforce, states that have legalized recreational and medical marijuana use show higher positivity rates than the national average. States that have not legalized marijuana appear to have positivity rates below the national average.”

Marijuana has undergone something of a global rebranding campaign over the past 20 years with an ever-growing number of people – medical and research experts as well as laypeople – touting its benefits for treating chronic pain and a variety of mental health issues.

Because of this, usage in the US is generally much higher. Many people choose to smoke, vape, or consume an edible product before work to boost their mood or creativity, though there is growing evidence that the drug provides no creative benefit.

And in a growing number of scenarios, the drug is doing more harm than good. Quest’s findings suggest that marijuana use is playing an increasing role in work-related injuries and accidents.

In 2022, marijuana positivity after an accident of urine drug testing in the general workforce was 7.3 percent, up 9 percent from the 6.7 percent recorded in 2021.

The new spike follows a steady increase in post-accident marijuana positivity annually from 2012 to 2022. During that decade-long period, post-accident marijuana positivity increased by more than 204 percent.

Katie Mueller, a senior program manager at the National Safety Council focusing on cannabis safety, said: ‘Intoxicating cannabis products, including marijuana, can have a major impact on workplace safety and have been proven to slow reaction time, affect memory and impair essential skills. driving.

“The Quest data provides compelling evidence that increased use of cannabis products by employees may contribute to a greater risk of workplace injuries.”