Amazon Backs Bill To Legalize Marijuana In US

Amazon is backing a US bill that would legalize marijuana nationwide and will drop a requirement that recruits undergo testing for the drug, the e-commerce giant said.

A growing number of US states have moved to legalize the drug, although it remains prohibited at the federal level.

"We hope other employers will join us and that politicians move quickly to pass this law," Dave Clark, head of global operations, said in a blog post Tuesday.

"In the past, like many employers, we have disqualified people from positions at Amazon if they tested positive for marijuana use," he added.

"But given the evolution of laws in different states of the country, we will no longer include marijuana in our extensive drug testing programs."

Instead, as with alcohol, workers will only be made to undergo testing in the event of an incident.

Civil groups and elected officials have said that bans on cannabis disproportionately affect Black and Latino communities.

New York's state governor signed a law in March allowing for recreational marijuana, joining 14 other American states in the move to legalization.

Copyright AFP. All rights reserved.

RECENT NEWS

From Cypherpunk To Citadel

How Crypto Moved from the Wild West to the Mainstream Financial SystemA long-form analysis of Bitcoin's journey from fri... Read more

Vodafone: From Titan To Pipe

Vodafone: From Titan to Pipe, and How Telecoms Gave Away the Real Prize Vodafone's story is one of the ... Read more

Investors Pile Into Nigerian Debt

Nigeria is attracting a fresh wave of investor interest as high-yielding local debt draws in global capital, but the sur... Read more

US Presses Banks On AI Cyber Threat

US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent convened the chief executives of some of the country’s largest banks this week to ... Read more

Oil Supply Crunch Deepens

The last oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz before the outbreak of war are now approaching their destinati... Read more

Anthropic Unlocks Nuclear Power!

Anthropic has committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars on computing infrastructure through a series of deal... Read more