Air Canada and Westjet...what a joke

[Dry Guy]

What happens when a worker under these bans gets a prescription for CBD oil or something from their doctor to threat a legitimate disease?

[mbav8r]

Well I was going to have a nice spliff with my wife and watch a funny movie before bed and be fresh up for duty. Guess i'll legally slam 18 beers 12 hrs before my duty instead. Hopefully I don't smell like PBRs during my crew briefing.

If you do that you’re not legal either!
For “binge” drinking, you must allow 24 hours prior to reporting for duty, at a absolute minimum, the average person metabolizes 1 ounce or 1 drink per hour. Therefore your example would require 18 hours.
I honestly don’t get how a professional pilot could argue for using marijuana, I’ve never met a successful pothead, maaannn!

Maaaannnn! I am a successful pot head, Maaaan! You think people who smoke pot go around broadcasting it to ignorant know it alls like yourself??? You are delusional!!!
Whats worse Maaaan, me smoking a joint and havin 2-3 beers, nice buzz and a nice sound sleep, or me killing 7-8 Johnny Walkers, waking up 3-4 times throughout the night for a piss, only to wake up again in the morning feeling like I got hit with a bag of hammers???
It takes me a solid day to get over having a few drinks. There is zero hangover or day after effects with weed

First of all, my statement is 100% true, I’ve personally never met a successful pothead. I have known several who spend great amounts of time high and unproductive. I have family members who fit the description. I don’t categorize casual smokers as potheads.
It takes me a solid day to get over a hangover also, so guess what, I DON’T DO IT WHEN I HAVE TO WORK.
Based on your posts and alias, you’ve been breaking the law for years, doesn’t sound professional to me. Zero tolerance means none, so you risk your career by smoking pot, you get back to me on how successful you are when you get caught.
If there is zero tolerance and you have a trace amount in your system, not enough to fail a drug test but still detected none the less, do you still fail in T.C’s eyes, to me zero means zero.

[Heliian]

Many provinces are treating it the same as alcohol. Only to be consumed in your own home or other “permitted” places. Ontario has definitely dropped the ball on this

Herein lies one problem, why would we need to ban consumption of alcohol in public? Is there a real danger or is just a "moral" danger.

prohibition is over. get over yourselves.

[mbav8r]

Many provinces are treating it the same as alcohol. Only to be consumed in your own home or other “permitted” places. Ontario has definitely dropped the ball on this

Herein lies one problem, why would we need to ban consumption of alcohol in public? Is there a real danger or is just a "moral" danger.

prohibition is over. get over yourselves.

The intent is to prevent underage people from being exposed to it, the same reason a lounge has to ensure VLTs are not visible in order to have accompanied minors in them. This whole thing in Ontario allowing pot anywhere smoking cigarettes is legal is extremely bizarre.

[Puffpuffpass]

I guess I should clarify I’m not a pot head nor have I smoked in almost a year, but yeah I guess I am guilty of taking a chance from time to time. I like to have an occasional drink as well, but I don’t ever indulge the day before a pairing. I also dont consume alcohol on a layover, other then a social beer for supper if the F/O and I decide to hook up.

What I’m getting at, Alcohol or Weed are both substances where if abused are going to negatively affect your life/health/career etc.

People who are gonna smoke were smoking long before it became legal, I know at least 10 WBC on heavy metal who from time to time like to have a puff . It’s not a bad thing, IMO anyways.

Explain to me why it’s ok for the guy giving me take off/ approach clearance, or controlling a sector with over 20-30 planes in it all carrying anywhere from 10 to 450 pax to smoke weed on his days off, but the guy turning the switches in the plane doing what that controller is telling him to do is forbidden and will be jailed in some circumstances.

[Victory]

The controller doesn't leave the country, first of all.

[tsgas]

The controller doesn't leave the country, first of all.

They also don't work at high altitudes for extended periods of time either.

[Puffpuffpass]

The controller doesn't leave the country, first of all.

He controls planes from other countries where it is illegal.

[Puffpuffpass]

The controller doesn't leave the country, first of all.

They also don't work at high altitudes for extended periods of time either.

What would altitude affect in a person who smoked weed anymore then a smoker??

[Say Again, Over!]

Actually, NAVCANADA's policy for ATC is that you cannot be at work with THC "in your system". Part of that policy also includes the possibility of testing after an incident or anytime there is justifiable cause. Pity the fool who has something happen on his watch and tests positive....

The long and short of it is that controllers are allowed to smoke pot all they want so long as there is no THC present in their body when they come to work. It's vague enough for them to cover themselves for liability's sake and will not need to be adjusted as testing measures improve. Essentially, right now, since test can detect THC up to a month after usage, there is a 28-30 day ban. If testing can reduce that window to 14 or 7 days, the policy will auto adjust.

[Victory]

Damn that's pretty smart wording. If WestJet and AC had said that it would have shut down a lot of the arguments.

[co-joe]

Actually, NAVCANADA's policy for ATC is that you cannot be at work with THC "in your system". Part of that policy also includes the possibility of testing after an incident or anytime there is justifiable cause. Pity the fool who has something happen on his watch and tests positive....

The long and short of it is that controllers are allowed to smoke pot all they want so long as there is no THC present in their body when they come to work. It's vague enough for them to cover themselves for liability's sake and will not need to be adjusted as testing measures improve. Essentially, right now, since test can detect THC up to a month after usage, there is a 28-30 day ban. If testing can reduce that window to 14 or 7 days, the policy will auto adjust.

I respect anyone who can sneak a Mr T quote into their argument.

[FL007]

Try again.

"So researchers paired several regular pot smokers and nonsmokers and put them in a sealed compartment together for an hour, while one smoked a joint containing a relatively strong strain of marijuana.

The 12 nonsmoking participants were then tasked with peeing into a cup 13 times over the next 34 hours. Their urine was tested for 9-carboxy-THC, the marijuana metabolite commonly measured in standard drug tests.

The results, published this month in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology, gives nonsmokers with weed-using friends reason to breathe easy. The scientists found urine levels of this metabolite surpassed typically detectable levels (50 nanogram per milliliter) in only one experiment participant, and this happened during a brief window four to six hours after exposure.

Using a more sensitive test, however, which is not usually employed in the workplace, scientists could detect blood THC levels above the 20 nanogram per milliliter in several participants in the hours after exposure. But these concentrations dipped below this threshold for all participants within 24 hours, according to the study, conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and elsewhere."

https://www.newsweek.com/could-second-h ... est-278913

Thank you for proving that if you have a runway incursion and have been around second hand pot, you might be jailed for the rest of your life.

They did a test 6 hours after, but they didn't do tests afterwards, who knows if a week later trace amounts show in blood tests.

If there is 0 tolerance 0.00000000000001 is criminal. Remember that, hopefully you're not on the forum in a couple months asking for advice and hoping tc would implement a realistic policy.

[seven-oh-nooo]

hoping tc would implement a realistic policy.

Transport's take, if what I heard today is true, is a hell of a lot worse than anyone thought. It's unclear whether it's nationwide or one overzealous region but doctors have been instructed to not renew your medical if you give the wrong answers to their questions.

[CpnCrunch]

Essentially, right now, since test can detect THC up to a month after usage, there is a 28-30 day ban. If testing can reduce that window to 14 or 7 days, the policy will auto adjust.

Tests will show THC in your system up to 77 days after last consumption, if you are a heavy user.

[C.W.E.]

This is incredible, you can't be an airline pilot and use marijuana wow what is this world coming to.

[AuxBatOn]

Try again.

"So researchers paired several regular pot smokers and nonsmokers and put them in a sealed compartment together for an hour, while one smoked a joint containing a relatively strong strain of marijuana.

The 12 nonsmoking participants were then tasked with peeing into a cup 13 times over the next 34 hours. Their urine was tested for 9-carboxy-THC, the marijuana metabolite commonly measured in standard drug tests.

The results, published this month in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology, gives nonsmokers with weed-using friends reason to breathe easy. The scientists found urine levels of this metabolite surpassed typically detectable levels (50 nanogram per milliliter) in only one experiment participant, and this happened during a brief window four to six hours after exposure.

Using a more sensitive test, however, which is not usually employed in the workplace, scientists could detect blood THC levels above the 20 nanogram per milliliter in several participants in the hours after exposure. But these concentrations dipped below this threshold for all participants within 24 hours, according to the study, conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and elsewhere."

https://www.newsweek.com/could-second-h ... est-278913

Thank you for proving that if you have a runway incursion and have been around second hand pot, you might be jailed for the rest of your life.

They did a test 6 hours after, but they didn't do tests afterwards, who knows if a week later trace amounts show in blood tests.

If there is 0 tolerance 0.00000000000001 is criminal. Remember that, hopefully you're not on the forum in a couple months asking for advice and hoping tc would implement a realistic policy.

Holy crap dude. Did you pass reading comprehension in elementary school?!

From the post you quoted: “The 12 nonsmoking participants were then tasked with peeing into a cup 13 times over the next 34 hours.”

They monitored TCH for 34 hrs (13 separate piss test for all 12 subjects) and only one subject showed levels above the detection level (50 nanogram per milliliter) and only in the 4-6 hrs period after exposure.

Don’t forget the ban is on smoking, not being exposed to second hand smoke. If the levels you get from being exposed are so low that they don’t register on normal tests, it’d be hard to argue someone smoked. You hius are making a bigger deal of second hand smoke (and using it to be allowed to smoke, vs a legitimate concern of impairment from second hand smoke) than it really is.

[FL007]

Try again.

"So researchers paired several regular pot smokers and nonsmokers and put them in a sealed compartment together for an hour, while one smoked a joint containing a relatively strong strain of marijuana.

The 12 nonsmoking participants were then tasked with peeing into a cup 13 times over the next 34 hours. Their urine was tested for 9-carboxy-THC, the marijuana metabolite commonly measured in standard drug tests.

The results, published this month in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology, gives nonsmokers with weed-using friends reason to breathe easy. The scientists found urine levels of this metabolite surpassed typically detectable levels (50 nanogram per milliliter) in only one experiment participant, and this happened during a brief window four to six hours after exposure.

Using a more sensitive test, however, which is not usually employed in the workplace, scientists could detect blood THC levels above the 20 nanogram per milliliter in several participants in the hours after exposure. But these concentrations dipped below this threshold for all participants within 24 hours, according to the study, conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and elsewhere."

https://www.newsweek.com/could-second-h ... est-278913

Thank you for proving that if you have a runway incursion and have been around second hand pot, you might be jailed for the rest of your life.

They did a test 6 hours after, but they didn't do tests afterwards, who knows if a week later trace amounts show in blood tests.

If there is 0 tolerance 0.00000000000001 is criminal. Remember that, hopefully you're not on the forum in a couple months asking for advice and hoping tc would implement a realistic policy.

Holy crap dude. Did you pass reading comprehension in elementary school?!

From the post you quoted: “The 12 nonsmoking participants were then tasked with peeing into a cup 13 times over the next 34 hours.”

They monitored TCH for 34 hrs (13 separate piss test for all 12 subjects) and only one subject showed levels above the detection level (50 nanogram per milliliter) and only in the 4-6 hrs period after exposure.

Don’t forget the ban is on smoking, not being exposed to second hand smoke. If the levels you get from being exposed are so low that they don’t register on normal tests, it’d be hard to argue someone smoked. You hius are making a bigger deal of second hand smoke (and using it to be allowed to smoke, vs a legitimate concern of impairment from second hand smoke) than it really is.

OK fair that I had misread the test had continued, regardless you probably don't get just a piss test in an incident.

So tell me, since clearly now you're going to attack intelligence and you know all the answers, how would you differentiate that someone smoked once 40 days ago vs you were in the room with a smoker 20 hours ago?

You would probably both show 0.000001 or whatever for an example on a blood test, which does not equal zero unless I failed math as well. You'd probably be shown to have "trace amounts of THC in your system" on the accident or incident report, regardless of use or second hand exposure.

They wouldn't have to prove you smoked, you'd have to prove you didn't smoke. They would have proved you had trace amounts in your system and zero tolerance is zero tolerance.

I just want realistic regulations, 77 day ban, if it's shown to stay in your system that long is fine with me. At least if you show trace amounts there it could have been indicative of a legal time period of use. To say if you ever have thc in your system ever no matter what your medical is invalid is absolutely ridiculous.

[AuxBatOn]

OK fair that I had misread the test had continued, regardless you probably don't get just a piss test in an incident.

So tell me, since clearly now you're going to attack intelligence and you know all the answers, how would you differentiate that someone smoked once 40 days ago vs you were in the room with a smoker 20 hours ago?

You would probably both show 0.000001 or whatever for an example on a blood test, which does not equal zero unless I failed math as well. You'd probably be shown to have "trace amounts of THC in your system" on the accident or incident report, regardless of use or second hand exposure.

They wouldn't have to prove you smoked, you'd have to prove you didn't smoke. They would have proved you had trace amounts in your system and zero tolerance is zero tolerance.

I just want realistic regulations, 77 day ban, if it's shown to stay in your system that long is fine with me. At least if you show trace amounts there it could have been indicative of a legal time period of use. To say if you ever have thc in your system ever no matter what your medical is invalid is absolutely ridiculous.

Well, unless you go fly a couple hours after you were in the presence of heavy smoker in an enclosed environment, you won't have to worry about that.

The legal Canadian impairement definition sits at 2.5 nanogram/ml for a warning and 5.0 nanogram/ml for being under the influence.

Give a real good read to this article and take time to actually read it: https://academic.oup.com/jat/article/39/7/497/819441

Here's a couple of quotes, in the Introductions section, that quotes previous studies:

"When the passive exposure study was repeated with collections conducted in a clean environment, participants uniformly tested negative at the screening/confirmation cutoff concentrations (3.0/1.5 ng/mL) for 8 h after passive exposure."

"In another study, Moore et al. (19) measured THC in oral fluid in a clean environment during 3 h exposure to secondhand cannabis smoke in a Dutch coffee house and for up to 22 h after exposure. Peak concentrations of THC during exposure for each of the 10 subjects were as follows: 4.3 (2 h), 6.8 (2 h), 5.8 (2 h), 3.8 (2 h), 1.5 (3 h), 5.1 (3 h), 2.3 (3 h), 17 (3 h), 12 (3 h) and 1.3 (3 h) ng/mL. Testing oral fluid at 12–22 h following exposure indicated that residual THC concentrations were detectable for two subjects (1.0 and 1.2 ng/mL), whereas the remaining subjects were negative."

Now, let's skip to the results of the study the article is the subject. The reason this study was conducted was to better control the environment of the subjects and of data collection, and to study stronger strains of marijuana.

"Generally, smokers began smoking immediately at the start of the session, took occasional short breaks and then resumed smoking until the end of the session. The average amounts of cannabis consumed per smoker in Sessions 1, 2 and 3 were 1.7, 2.4 and 2.8 g, respectively. This corresponded to means of 90.1, 271.2 and 316.4 mg of THC per smoker and to a mean total THC per session of 545.9, 1627.2 and 1864.5 mg for all smokers combined. For comparison, the smokers reported prior daily consumption of an average of 1.5 g of cannabis.

During Sessions 1 and 2 (nonventilated conditions), there was rapid accumulation of smoke inside the chamber that persisted throughout the 1-h period, whereas in Session 3 (ventilated condition), visible smoke was present, but at lower levels. The use of goggles helped alleviate eye irritation that occurred in the unventilated sessions."

Take a good look at table III, which details the levels of THC over time of specimens during the worst case session (2, with higher level of THC marijuana) and session 3. At no time did the THCCOH (what is tested for in the drug tests) go over 1.7 nanogram/ml and in most cases it is gone after 6hrs (only one case it stayed for 12 hrs, but the level after 6 hrs was 0.9 nanogram/ml)

"This study demonstrated that extreme exposure to environmental cannabis smoke by nonsmokers situated in close proximity to smokers led to deposition of THC in oral fluid. Oral fluid specimens for nonsmokers in the two sessions conducted without ventilation tested positive by IA (4 ng/mL cutoff concentrations) and were confirmed for THC by LC–MS-MS (2 ng/mL) for up to 3 h following cessation of exposure. In the third session of this study, conducted with ventilation that simulated air-conditioning, some initial positive tests occurred, but the number was substantially diminished."

The study also goes in great lenghth documenting the same results for those who smoke the joints.

In short, you will not have to worry about second hand exposure.

[trey kule]

I am amazed that so many are willing to risk their careers to smoke pot...

From Victory....

“Great, so only 1 person would have their life destroyed with the least sensitive test “

Their life destroyed? And what about all the innocent pax who entrust their lives to a pilot expecting they will not be impaired? But then you really are not that good at reading comprehension, are you?

I am going to post it here and everywhere else when I get the chance.....I hope TC will add a test for THC to the urine sample at medical time, ( or company medical) we really do need to get these “its Ok to smoke pot” out of the cockpit.