Urinary Pharmacokinetic Profile of Cannabinoids Following Administration of Vaporized and Oral Cannabidiol and Vaporized CBD-Dominant Cannabis

Cannabis products in which cannabidiol (CBD) is the primary chemical constituent (CBD-dominant) are increasingly popular and widely available. The impact of CBD exposure on urine drug testing has not been well studied. This study characterized the urinary pharmacokinetic profile of 100-mg oral and vaporized CBD, vaporized CBD-dominant cannabis (100-mg CBD; 3.7-mg ∆9-THC) and placebo in healthy adults (n = 6) using a within-subjects crossover design. Urine specimens were collected before and for 5 days after drug administration. Immunoassay (IA) screening (cutoffs of 20, 50 and 100 ng/mL) and LC–MS-MS confirmatory tests (cutoff of 15 ng/mL) for 11-nor-9-carboxy-∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (∆9-THCCOOH) were performed; urine was also analyzed for CBD and other cannabinoids. Urinary concentrations of CBD were higher after oral (mean Cmax: 776 ng/mL) versus vaporized CBD (mean Cmax: 261 ng/mL). CBD concentrations peaked 5 h after oral CBD ingestion and within 1 h after inhalation of vaporized CBD. After pure CBD administration, only 1 out of 218 urine specimens screened positive for ∆9-THCCOOH (20-ng/mL IA cutoff) and no specimens exceeded the 15-ng/mL confirmatory cutoff. After inhalation of CBD-dominant cannabis vapor, nine samples screened positive at the 20-ng/mL IA cutoff, and two of those samples screened positive at the 50-ng/mL IA cutoff. Four samples that screened positive (two at 20 ng/mL and two at 50 ng/mL) confirmed positive with concentrations of ∆9-THCCOOH exceeding 15 ng/mL. These data indicate that acute dosing of pure CBD will not result in a positive urine drug test using current federal workplace drug testing guidelines (50-ng/mL IA cutoff with 15-ng/mL confirmatory cutoff). However, CBD products that also contain ∆9-THC may produce positive urine results for ∆9-THCCOOH. Accurate labeling and regulation of ∆9-THC content in CBD/hemp products are needed to prevent unexpected positive drug tests and unintended drug effects.

Fostering Employee Cooperation Behavior in the Federal Workplace: Exploring the Effects of Performance Management Strategies

The purpose of this study was to discover how performance management strategies foster cooperative behavior as a means of producing better outcomes. Using multiple data from the 2010 Federal Human Capital Survey provided by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management via its FedScope data portal and Federal Human Resource Data, we tested hypotheses that considered both individual- and agency-level factors in individual cooperative behaviors. This study highlights how performance management strategies promote employee cooperation such that the management practice is taken for granted; however, there is no research that examines the relationship between them. This investigation confirms several performance practices existing between and within the federal agencies. Managers can learn from the evidence provided and apply these strategies to induce cooperative behaviors that help to achieve organizational goals and improve organizational performance. The results reveal that performance management strategies display positive and nonlinear relationships with employee cooperation.

Creating a strategic enforcement approach to address wage theft: One academic’s journey in organizational change

Strategic enforcement represents a proactive approach to using limited enforcement resources available to a regulatory agency to protect workers as required by the law. It does so by using enforcement tools, outreach, and collaboration with other government agencies, worker advocates, businesses, and the public to change employer behavior in a sustainable way. Strategic enforcement is critical given the limited resources available to government as well as because of the breaking up (fissuring) of modern employment that increases the prevalence of violations and makes responsibility for compliance more opaque. This article lays out the challenges in instituting such an approach based on the author’s experience in leading a major federal workplace agency in the US during the Obama administration. It describes the major elements of a strategic enforcement approach as well as the major organizational innovations that were necessary to put it into place.

Beyond Social Exchange Theory: A Theoretical Shift for Mentoring Relationships in the Federal Workplace

This paper examines the principles of social exchange theory associated with the application of mentoring for knowledge transfer in the federal workplace. Specifically, federal workplace is intended to mean any U.S. government agency defined by bureaucratic processes in its operations. Max Weber’s (1930) comparison of a bureaucracy to an iron cage is both classical and paramount to this discussion. Within the iron cage, Weber posed the further the organization perfects its operation, the more dehumanized the interaction between players (Farganis, 2011). Most important, due to the hierarchical structure and emphasis on career progression associated with the bureaucracy, mentoring relationships are often forged in a knowledge economy. Over time, mastery of skill is supported by a grasp of institutional history and organizational knowledge. Contemporary social work is aptly suited for investigating the barriers to, behavioral elements of, and best practices for fostering effective mentoring relationships in facilitating knowledge transfer between federal employees.