Medical Marijuana Catch-22: You’re Fired
March 24th, 2010. By AbiK
How in hell do the fourteen states where it’s legal—yes, LEGAL—to use marijuana for medical reasons have such a progressive law that, on the flip side, opens the door for employers to fire medical marijuana card-carrying employees who test positive for marijuana use?
According to a cnn.com article, Keith Stroup, who’s on the legal counsel team for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says he gets around “300 emails and phone calls a year from medical marijuana who have been fired or had job offers rescinded because of a failed drug test.”
Stroup goes on to say, “Usually they talk about how they have lost their job and I tell them there’s not a thing they can do about it.”
True, in most at-will employment states an employee can be fired for any reason—except for those reasons that put the employee in a federally protected class—such as race, gender, and religion.
But medical marijuana-use employees are not a federally protected class. So employers pretty much have carte blanche to fire any employee who fails a drug test for marijuana use regardless of whether that use is for a medical reason.
Interestingly, the cnn.com article highlights a case in Michigan where a Wal-Mart employee was let go after a drug test. The employee was a card-carrying medical marijuana user. The interesting part is this excerpt from the article:
But Michigan may be an exception to most states. Part of Michigan’s law, passed in 2008, does address employers, saying a patient carrying a medical marijuana card cannot be “denied any right or privilege” by a “business or occupational or professional licensing board.”
Some attorneys say Michigan’s law could be fertile grounds for a discrimination suit. Casias hasn’t decided whether he will pursue a lawsuit.
Currently, the fourteen states where medical marijuana is legal are: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
With more states continuing to debate legalizing medical marijuana—Kansas and Alabama are two the cnn.com article points out as traditionally more conservative states that are considering legalization—employees are likely to face more scrutiny—both in their current jobs as well as when they seek out new employment and have to submit to drug testing during the hiring process.
Stay tuned…
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Sad, but true. It's perfectly acceptable to use addictive painkillers that leave you in a daze, but god forbid someone use a natural herb to help with pain management. Smoking a little marijuana in the evening has no adverse effect on most peoples job performance.
To be fair, I do think some employers are at the mercy of their insurance companies.
I agree . Employers don't want to lose good employees because they smoke pot. They are usually the best employees! It's the fricking insurance companies
Disgusting. Do they fire users of Percocet? Vicodin? Oxycodone?
The classification of cannabis as Schedule I is clearly out of date, as fully 1/4 of US states have recognized and legalized it for medical use.
When will the DEA admit their failure? When will they stop PERSECUTING people who use a substance that is demonstrably safer and less addictive than alcohol or tobacco?
When will the oppression STOP?!
For shame on all of us for not rising up sooner on this; if a person doesn't have the right to self-medicate then he is nothing but a slave!
Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most normal thinking people in the direction of sensible regulation.
By its very nature prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model – the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous, ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the huge profits involved.
Many of us have now finally wised up to the fact that the best avenue towards realistically dealing with drug use and addiction is through proper regulation, which is what we already do with alcohol & tobacco –two of our most dangerous mood altering substances. But for those of you whose ignorant minds traverse a fantasy plane of existence, you will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to the absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society.
There is an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. If you are not capable of understanding this connection, then maybe you're using something far stronger than the rest of us. Anybody 'halfway bright' and who's not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding, that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem; it is our refusal to allow legal businesses to meet that demand.
No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safer; only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?
If you still support the kool aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.
The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation!
Pills knock me out or make me sick at my stomach, my boss knows I use cannabis for pain relief, I dont over do at work and bring a can do attitude to the job..my work dosnt suffer and my customers love me. I do what most Bosses want from their employees, generate cash. Their are so many people just like me, why the hate and lies?
Hello, i am an medic practicing in berlin, germany and found your post most interesting.
Please note that self injurious behavior among autistic populations who are non verbal is rooted in multiple antecedents that fluctuate daily and are rooted in autistic disorder. Primarily the inability to communicate and cognitive impairments in autistic population. This is very complex. However, there are similarities among self injurious person in general. For instance, the frustration of being held captive to what is often a behavior that has evolved into a compuslive behavior. A behavior that is triggered by a plethora of antecedents, due to autistic person’s inability to respond to conventional methods used in non autistic populations to thwart or otherwise reduce the tendencies to self abuse. Marijuana advocates don’t seem to understand the complexities involved in dealing with autistic who present with chronic intraccable SIB. If they want to be taken seriously, they need to do their research. They need to explain WHY marijuana would HELP autistic who self abuse. What does marijuana DO to brain that would help? Does it elevate dopamine? Or other neurotransmitters that would reduce tendency to self abuse? What are adverse reactions? What about autistics with seizure issues? Or who have complex issues? You can’t just take one or two examples of people who CLAIM dope helped their autistic kid without examining WHY or HOW this worked?
see kgaccount on you tube for better understanding of how complex treatment is with autistic population who self abuse
Obviously you are in another world. People that smoke marijuana are Autistic. What are you on Something for schizophrenia . Give me a break!!