Posts Tagged ‘ Medical Marijuana ’

Poll Results: Should States Legalize Marijuana?

August 2nd, 2011. By AbiK

We’ve just closed our poll asking whether states should legalize marijuana for medical use. And the results are interesting, as they seem to indicate that public opinion may be shifting a bit in favor of legalization.

Now, admittedly, you could argue that LawyersandSettlements.com readers might somehow inherently represent a group that’s more open to the idea of legal pot. But as of the close of our poll, the results based on 301 respondents are as follows:

Yes, Legalize Medical Marijuana:                    75%  (N=226)

No, Do Not Legalize Medical Marijuana          25%  (N=75)

The reason for saying that public opinion might be shifting a bit is that when we took a look at the same question asked over at Urtak.com a while back, the results were not as clear cut as they appear to be here. At the time, only 55% of respondents at Urtak.com felt that medical marijuana should be legalized.

For those who are keeping track, there are currently 16 states (and Washington DC) in which medical marijuana is legal: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington DC, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Additionally, according to MedicalMarijuana.ProCon.org, there are 10 states that have pending medical marijuana legislation: Alabama, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Tags: Legal Marijuana, Legalize Medical Marijuana, Legalize Pot, Medical Marijuana, Poll
Posted in Drugs/Medical, Emerging Issues | No Comments »

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says he gets around “300 emails and phone calls a year from medical marijuana who have been fired or had job offers rescinded because of a failed drug test.”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 Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Discrimination, Employment, Labor Law, Marijuana, Medical Marijuana
Posted in Discrimination, Drugs/Medical, Emerging Issues, Employment | 8 Comments »