But that was the point of the OP. If my employee smells like skunk, does that suggest they’re smoking weed? The OP is trying to build a case (or at least see if their hunch is right) before making the accusation.
The facts you say. Sorry my opinion is “innocent until strongly proven guilty through reasonable suspicion.” I still see no facts presented regarding poor job performance, inability to get along with co-workers, etc. I only see suspicion based off of ignorance. Suit yourself I guess, but rest at your behest I will not.
Unfortunately - there is one fact that counts - there is zero tolerance for drug use in the contract. Doesn’t matter if she is the best employee in the entire world. If she is using, then 150 people could lose their jobs.
That’s just it. I’ve smoked a metric ton of weed, as have my associates. The only time I’d ever describe a “skunky” smell is when someone has a baggy of high grade weed in their pocket. Smoking it leads to more of a smokey smell, sorta like that you might find after someone smokes a cigarette/cigar/clove cig.
When someone walks into a room with a baggie in their pocket, folks laugh and say, “OK, who is the dealer?”. I cannot fathom someone walking around with a half ounce of good shit in their pocket at work. It would be idiotic unless they worked in a dispensary.
Another vote for potheads not smelling like skunk. Even poor hygiene doesn’t really produce that particular odor. A shoe after stepping in fresh dog shit might come close.
I have a sixteen year old son who has had issues with weed - and he does smell skunky - and the scent does linger. Now, as a weed user himself (hopefully former - at least until his brain development stops) he can’t smell it. But I can, and his dad can, and his sister can. He keeps wondering how he gets caught (its been months).
In particular, spilled bong water REEKS.
I will agree with this. Everyone who says they can’t smell it after a short time is obviously a smoker because I can pick out the stoners in the grocery store or at the mall without so much as a glance because that smell just wafts off of them. Not saying that smoking pot is bad necessarily, just that it has a very obvious, often slightly skunky aroma that is easy to pick up if you don’t use it yourself.
That is not what he meant, because he doesn’t know if his employee smells like pot. He knows she smells like skunk, and he wants to know if that could possibly mean she’s using pot, having heard something to that effect in the past. Now, he could have titled the thread “Does my employee smell like pot?” if he wanted the title to be a question rather than a statement.
Yet the facts are:
Innocent until proven guilty does not apply here. It’s not a trial. He started this thread to see if the odor he has detected establishes reasonable suspicion for further investigation (not for a determination of “guilty”).
Job performance, ability to get along with co-workers, etc. are irrelevant. The standard that he has a responsibility to uphold, in the context of the government contract, is not how well the employee performs (though that is a concern in other contexts), it’s whether or not the employee is using pot, period.
His initial suspicion may be based on ignorance, and he recognizes that. Even so, he is not in a position where he can afford to ignore the possibilty that the initial suspicion may be correct. That’s why he’s here.
Thank you, Bricker. I wish I’d said that when it first came up!
What Joey said, below. I’m extraordinarily naive on this subject. I saw some marijuana once, in a baggie on my friends dining room table. I asked her to move the bag closer so I could see it better - I wouldn’t even touch it. That was my sole experience with marijuana. (I don’t remember smelling anything.) So before wastina a lot of time and effort, I wanted to know if my vague recollection was valid.
Update: I did put her on the testing schedule. There would have been three or more people tested since then. I know that we had one dirty test, but the results are still anonymous, pending follow-up testing. I most likely will not be involved from this point forward, HR takes over from here. Hopefully they’ll get her treatment and re-assign her to a commercial contract.
All I’ll get is a notification to open a requisition to refill the position.
Bilge. 
At a temp job I had one dude always smelled VERY strongly or what I thought was pot, so much so that I assumed he smoked on the way to work every morning in a closed car. But, I only ever used pot a few times, so I cannot say I didn’t misidentify the smell.
Is there actual treatment for pot smoking?
There used to be some cigarette that smelled a lot like pot, but I don’t remember the brand. I just remember that it was notorious among my high school friends who smoked. Half of them thought it was extra cool to smoke that brand, and the other half avoided it like the plague, because their parents didn’t care that they smoked cigarettes, but would have freaked if they thought they were OMG! doing drugs! :dubious: I haven’t heard anything about it lately, but I’d think that with so many workplaces doing testing, and having zero-tolerance policies, the cigarette would reformulate.
It’s possible it’s still around somewhere, though.
If she genuinely smells like skunk, I would expect it to go away eventually. I ran over an already-dead skunk once (I’d seen it in the other lane on my way out). I didn’t swerve, because it looked pretty flat, but who knew? An at-least-nine-hours-dead skunk can still make your car smell for a couple of weeks, but it does eventually go away.
There’s generic rehab, and going to it might be a condition of remaining employed once you have a positive test for anything.
Given the level of misjudgment necessary to be doing this on this particular job, I cant think of anything other than addiction which could explain taking such an action. Really, unbelievably stupid thing to do.
I fear that we are going to have more and more of these in the near future, as many local DC residents are very confused about the difference between “decriminalizing” and “legalizing” possession. This particular case occurred before the change in the law, but I had a chat with HR about providing clarification.
It’s also still against Federal Law throughout the USA, which is the pertinent point in our business.
More to the point, unbelievably stupid to do it immediately before work, or to bring pot onto the premises. Even if pot were legal, your business would still be allowed to say that people could not bring it onto the premises.
But, we still don’t know the whole story; this is still all theoretical.
I sure as shit hope so.
ETA: “Dude, what the fuck is your problem? Stop smokin pot!!” There ya go, feel free to use with a Creative Commons license.
Alcohol.
Back in college I had to have a few clean drug tests. After that was all done, from time to time people would come up to me asking how to beat them and what I did to beat mine. “Dude, just stop smoking weed for like a month, you’ll live”… Seriously, that’s all I did. My guy told me that the levels just had to be below a certain number so lets get one test in, see where I land then you can just smoke less (this was an AODA guy BTW). But it was easier and faster to just give it up for a month, get a clean test and be done with the whole thing. Made everyone happier. My numbers tapered off very rapidly, there was never anything else in my system and after 6 weeks or so I was done with the whole stupid ordeal.
That’s always been my advice to people. No, it doesn’t work for a random drug test when you just have a few hours or days notice, but if something’s happening in your life where you just need one clean test just give it up for a month or two before the test, you’ll survive.
If you won’t, or think you won’t, then you have a problem that needs to be addressed by a professional. You probably have an anxiety disorder, and will feel better with an actual prescription medication for anxiety than with weed, and your lungs will thank you, too.