A growing number of jurisdictions are moving toward legalization, from Washington and Colorado, to Canada, Uruguay, Portugal, and other areas. And now that legalization is well under way within Colorado, some employers in the state are now open to trying the traditional “smoke break” in a new way; they’re encouraging cannabis smoke breaks for their employees.
The employers, who run cannabis businesses in the state, say that they encourage the smoking because they think that it might increase the productivity and the creativity of their workers.
“If it helps our employees get work done, then we don’t care if they consume at work.. It definitely surfaces new ideas and a fresh take on things… Out clients are some of the biggest firms in the cannabis industry,.. We have to be on point with our work. We’ve never had a problem yet,” says CEO Kyle Sherman who is the co-founder Flowhub.
Flowhub is a business which provides software to the cannabis industry. They allow their workers to bring in pot-laced edibles and drinks as well and they’ve been cannabis-friendly with their employees since day one. Another business, High There! is also open to fostering the cannabis smoke breaks. They are a company which operates a social media platform for cannabis users and their co-founder, Darren Roberts, says that the smoking has led to breakthrough “brainstorming” moments for the business.
MassRoots, a cannabis social media network, is another company which also allows for such smoke breaks. The co-founder, Isaac Dietrich, says that he schedules weekly smoking sessions on the roof of his apartment building for strategic sessions and employee bonding. His company alone so far has roughly 30 employees and has raised millions of dollars in funding.
As we know, not everyone is going to be similarly supportive of coupling job duties with cannabis smoking. Just this week employers in Canada have raised concerns about the potential abuse of employees being intoxicated on the job; something that is always a risk not only with cannabis, but also with alcohol, and a variety of other substances. It will be interesting to see how the market, and employers, continue to cater and adapt to the growing popularity of cannabis use.