Key Takeaways
- A positive workplace THC test does not prove impairment or when cannabis was consumed, as reinforced by a recent court ruling.
- In the County Concrete case, an arbitrator reinstated an employee after finding insufficient evidence of impairment despite a positive test.
- New Jersey’s CREAMMA law prohibits adverse actions based solely on a positive THC test without signs of impairment or reasonable suspicion.
- Employers can still drug test under CREAMMA if they observe clear signs of impairment, especially after workplace incidents.
- The ruling emphasizes the distinction between cannabis use and workplace impairment, urging employers to rely on observable evidence.
A THC positive drug test tells you cannabis was consumed at some point. It rarely tells you when, and it almost never tells you whether someone was impaired while clocked in at the workplace. That just got reinforced in federal court, and it carries real weight for New Jersey employers still writing their cannabis policies around outdated assumptions.
The case, County Concrete Corporation v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 863, centers on Greggory Wells, a concrete facility worker terminated after two managers claimed they smelled marijuana coming from his car as he drove past them on a lunch break. A subsequent drug test came back positive, and the company fired him under its two-strike drug policy.
An arbitrator later ordered Wells reinstated with back pay, seniority, and benefits, finding that odor and a positive test alone didn’t establish workplace use or impairment. County Concrete asked the federal court to throw out that award. Judge Semper declined, and the ruling is worth looking at for what it does, and doesn’t, change.
What Happened at County Concrete
Wells had been working at County Concrete’s Landi Facility since 2021. On April 24, 2025, while driving his personal vehicle past two managers, both claimed they detected a strong marijuana odor from roughly 20 feet away. When Wells returned from lunch, the operations manager ordered a reasonable suspicion drug test. Wells reportedly told him it would “come back positive.” The company suspended him the next day and terminated him on May 5, 2025, after the test confirmed marijuana use. Wells had also tested positive once before, in December 2023, which triggered the company’s two-strike policy.
The union grieved the termination, and the case went before Arbitrator Mattye M. Gandel. After an evidentiary hearing, the arbitrator found something significant missing from the record: no slurred speech, no glassy eyes, no performance issues, and no observed impairment during Wells’s shift.
In fact, the company let him finish his workday without incident after the alleged odor was reported. Based on that gap in evidence, the arbitrator ruled County Concrete lacked just cause to fire Wells and ordered full reinstatement.
What Does New Jersey’s CREAMMA Law Actually Require?
New Jersey’s Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization Act, better known as CREAMMA, draws a firm line between lawful cannabis use and workplace impairment. Under the statute, an employee cannot face adverse action solely because cannabinoid metabolites show up in a drug test.
That protection isn’t absolute, though. Employers retain real authority in specific situations:
- They can order a drug test based on reasonable suspicion of cannabis use during work hours, observable signs of intoxication, or following a workplace accident.
- They can act on those results, including termination, once impairment or on-duty use is actually established.
The arbitrator in the County Concrete case leaned on guidance from the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission, which recommends documenting physical signs of impairment and using a standardized observation report. County Concrete’s evidence didn’t hold up against that framework. The odor complaint wasn’t documented until more than a week later, on the same day the positive test results arrived, and neither manager had training in recognizing drug impairment.
Why Can’t a Positive Test Prove Someone Was High on the Job?
This is the scientific reality underpinning the whole dispute. Cannabis metabolites can linger in a person’s system long after any impairment has worn off. Urine tests can detect cannabis use anywhere from one day to a full month after consumption, depending on frequency of use. Someone who smoked over the weekend could test positive on a Wednesday without being anywhere close to impaired.
That’s precisely the gap the arbitrator identified. A smell and a positive result establish that cannabis was present in Wells’s life at some point. Neither fact pins down when he used it or whether it affected his work.
As the union argued, residual odor on clothing or in a vehicle can persist from off-duty use, and a positive test result simply doesn’t distinguish between someone impaired on the clock and someone who consumed cannabis legally days earlier.
The court agreed this reasoning didn’t run afoul of established law, noting elsewhere in the opinion that cannabis can remain detectable in the body for up to thirty days.
Why Federal Courts Rarely Overturn Arbitration Awards
Here’s the procedural detail that coverage of this case often overlooks: Judge Semper wasn’t ruling on whether Wells was right or wrong on the merits. He was deciding whether the arbitrator’s award could survive an extremely narrow standard of judicial review.
Federal courts give labor arbitration awards enormous deference. Under the “manifest disregard of law” doctrine, a party seeking to vacate an award has to show the arbitrator recognized a clearly governing legal principle and chose to ignore it outright, not that the arbitrator interpreted the law imperfectly or reached a debatable conclusion.
As Judge Semper’s opinion put it, even a “serious error” by an arbitrator generally isn’t enough to justify overturning an award. That’s an intentionally steep bar, designed to keep courts from re-litigating cases that parties already agreed to resolve through arbitration.
County Concrete argued the arbitrator ignored CREAMMA by relying on non-binding state guidance. The court disagreed, finding the arbitrator used that guidance to interpret the statute’s reasonable suspicion requirement, not to override it. Because the arbitrator’s read on the law was at least arguable, the award had to stand, regardless of whether a court might have weighed the facts differently.
What This Means for New Jersey Employers Going Forward
This ruling isn’t a sweeping declaration of cannabis rights. It’s a reminder that CREAMMA already drew a distinction between use and impairment back in 2021, and employers who skip the impairment part of that equation are building a weak case.
Companies that want to enforce drug-free workplace policies still can. They just need documentation that actually shows impairment: observable behavior, timely reporting, and ideally staff trained to recognize the signs.
The timing here matters too. New Jersey courts have been actively defining the boundaries of cannabis employment law all year. A separate May 2026 appellate ruling in Sanders v. The Levari Group found that CREAMMA gives applicants and employees an implied right to sue employers directly, a decision that conflicts with a 2024 Third Circuit ruling and sets up further legal uncertainty. Employers relying on positive cannabis tests as their sole basis for hiring or firing decisions are operating in increasingly risky territory.
For now, the County Concrete case sends a narrower but still useful signal: a positive THC test opens the door to a conversation about reasonable suspicion. It doesn’t close the case on its own.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Under CREAMMA, New Jersey employers cannot penalize employees solely for testing positive for cannabinoid metabolites. Employers must have evidence of reasonable suspicion or observable impairment affecting work performance.
County Concrete failed to prove that Greggory Wells used, possessed, or was impaired by cannabis at work, the arbitrator found. Without evidence such as slurred speech, glassy eyes, or performance issues, the company lacked just cause to terminate him under the collective bargaining agreement.
Federal courts apply a highly deferential standard to labor arbitration awards. Judge Semper found the arbitrator had made a reasonable interpretation of CREAMMA without disregarding New Jersey law — enough to uphold the award.
Urine tests can detect THC for up to a month after consumption, meaning a positive result doesn’t necessarily indicate impairment at the time of testing.
No. Employers can still test employees upon reasonable suspicion of on-duty cannabis use, following a workplace accident, or when there are observable signs of intoxication. CREAMMA restricts adverse action based solely on a positive test, not drug testing itself.
