Oh, I know. It's still ironic though. The fact that cannabis is illegal is just a technicality. It shouldn't be any more illegal than cigarettes or alcohol, and based on the number of users, for all intents and purposes it may as well be legal. The perspective change between "illegal" and "legal" is so thin, it effectively doesn't matter. In fact, the only real argument against cannabis is that it's illegal.
That's starting to change. We now have two states where cannabis is outright legal, and it should have been three. I can't believe Oregon lamed out.
Anyway.. I don't support this move, I think it's just as much BS as testing for cannabis. If I come to work and do my job satisfactory, that is all that matters.
One problem - it doesn't work the same way for cigarette smokers as it does cannabis users. You can't keep a cigarette smoker from their fix for 4+ hours, while a cannabis user can easily go 8-12 hours without their fix. I'm not really sure how you deal with that in this scenario. If you smoke cigarettes, being banned from smoking at the work place effectively bans you from smoking.
There are alternatives.
Restrict number of smoke breaks (of course, this depends on leadership/management to effectively monitor and control);
force the use of non-smoking alternatives at any point in time that smoking should not be approved... say, two breaks + lunch break, any more you do something else, or if outright workplace ban, you use alternatives throughout the work day (outside of legally-mandated breaks, I don't see it right to prevent the 10 minutes breaks and lunch break smoking)
they can also encourage patches, gum, e-cigarettes, and snus of course.
There's no perfect solution, obviously - imho, the best would actually be limiting smoke breaks to prevent an abuse of time and loss of work-hours, and keeping it fair with other people (of course, some types will always abuse breaks, even if it's just extended chats down the hall). How the individual chooses to keep up their nicotine intake in-between the three or four allotted smoke breaks, that's their choice.
As for marijuana. Well - that's gonna be the thing. As long as its illegal simply because its still illegal, most employers are going to test for it. There's a lot of stigma still wrapped around it as long as it remains illegal, too. If those floodgates open, I am hoping testing for marijuana drops. I'd recommend to a whole lot of people to simply take a short puff or two every now and then instead of reaching for various NSAIDs - my dad for one has lingering pains in his foot from spinal nerve issues (surgery wasn't successful enough), and I'm confident marijuana would do wonders for that (without requiring a high) considering vicodin does a decent enough job -- he just refuses to get too into the stuff, doesn't want to abuse the prescription and suffer for it. But it's illegal, and his workplace does random tests.
Your statement "the only real argument against cannabis is that it's illegal" is something I've firmly believed for too long. So much stigma to fight against, it's not as easy to overturn it.
I am highly interested to see how the Federal government handles these "rogue states" who are effectively making it legal. And how employers in the state handle it for drug testing (both local ones and nationwide corporations).