Federal contractors, such as those of the defense industry on Aquidneck Island, have much at stake if the state legislature legalizes recreational marijuana.
Because while individual states have legalized the drug, it remains federally illegal. And employers like General Dynamics Electric Boat and Raytheon drug test their employees.
“We’ve heard from Electric Boat the challenges bringing staff on are much higher in Rhode Island compared to Connecticut,” said Sen. Louis DiPalma, D-Middletown. In Connecticut, “they see single digits of people who aren’t able to pass a drug test. In Rhode Island, it’s in the 20s.”
“There is an undercurrent of small businesses who are very concerned and the defense industry, as well,” she said of the prospect of recreational marijuana being legalized.
Three hundred companies in the Ocean State feed into the federal Department of Defense, a $3.7 billion industry here that boasts 33,000 jobs, some of which pay six-figure salaries, according to Ruggiero.
Federal contractors in states that have legalized recreational marijuana, such as Colorado and Washington State, have had to look beyond their borders to fill jobs because many in-state workers can’t pass the drug test, according to Ruggiero.
“I know Electric Boat has had a challenge,” DiPalma said, “trying to fill the number of positions that need to be filled.”
Representatives from Raytheon, which manufactures military weapons and electronic systems, and Electric Boat, a designer and builder of submarines for the Navy, did not return voice messages and emails seeking comment for this article.
The head of the Southeastern New England Defense Industry Alliance (SENEDIA) deferred all questions to the companies themselves. A spokesman from the Naval Undersea Warfare Center instructed a reporter to call Navy headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Other issues related to marijuana, such as law enforcement and the ability for children to access the drug, have gained more traction in the debate than its ramifications for the defense sector.
Once again, the legislature is vetting bills to legalize recreational marijuana. This year, the discussion takes on a greater sense of urgency after voters in Massachusetts passed a legalization referendum last November. It is possible retail shops in Massachusetts can begin selling the drug as soon as next year, bringing a new tax revenue stream into state coffers.
And the potential impact on the defense industry weighs on Ruggiero and DiPalma.
Liana Ferreira-Fenton, a long-time member of the Middletown School Committee, stressed how much the state and companies have invested in science, technology, engineering and math to prepare students for the vacancies at defense contractors.
And part of that education includes impressing upon them the consequences of their actions.
“The businesses have told (the students), and I have every opportunity I get that (marijuana) is a problem because they will not be able to get these jobs,” Ferreira-Fenton said. “That’s one of the things I’ve always told my students: There are consequences for their acts.”
credit:newportri.com
