DETROIT – A Breathalyzer designed to determine whether someone is currently under the influence of cannabis is being used by employers in Michigan and is now offered at several medical centers around the state.
The device developed by California-based Hound Labs Inc. is among the first to detect recent marijuana use, distinguishing it from other tests that indicate the presence of cannabis over an extended period.
“Our product has a specific purpose of deterring workday use whereas a lot of products out there, when that detection window is as long as it is, it’s looking for habitual users,” Tamanna Prashar, chief operating officer of Hound Labs, said in an interview with the Detroit Free Press. “We want to make sure that you can use (a cannabis) product at any point in time — on your own personal time being the key word — but you’re not basically unfairly dealt with if you do that.”
Many Michigan employers have been reexamining drug testing policies over the past few decades, especially in 2008, when medical marijuana was legalized, and again in 2018, when recreational marijuana was legalized. More recently, some companies decided to no longer test new hires for marijuana because they didn’t want to miss out on talent in a tight labor market.
A big challenge to testing employees for marijuana was the lack of a test that could detect recent usage. More available drug tests using urine, saliva and hair can detect THC in the body for several days, weeks and even months.
Yet, for those workplaces who do test for marijuana, positivity rates are rising in Michigan. Last year, the positivity rate for the Michigan workforce was 5.8%, compared with 3.1% for the general U.S. workforce, according to recently released data from Quest Diagnostics, a New Jersey-based company that analyzes millions of workplace drug tests every year. In Michigan, that percentage has steadily risen over the last four years, from 3.9% in 2019 to 5.2% in 2022.
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