Pubdate: Thu, 25 Jun 2015
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2015 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409

USING MEDICAL POT IS NOT A FIREABLE OFFENSE

NEARLY two-thirds of Americans now live in a state that allows 
medical marijuana in some form. Just this year, five Southern states, 
including Texas, allowed limited access to therapies based on 
cannabis. The revolt against the blanket federal marijuana 
prohibition has now spread to at least 29 states.

Yet using marijuana as medicine - and it clearly can be useful 
medicine - can get you fired in most of those states (and the 
District of Columbia), even if the use is off the clock. The Supreme 
Court of Colorado affirmed that last week, echoing similar cases in 
Washington, Oregon and California, where there are no mandatory 
workplace accommodations for therapeutic use of cannabis.

The antiquated federal Controlled Substances Act's bans on marijuana 
use pre-empts state laws. To accommodate legitimate medical-marijuana 
use for workers, federal law must change.

The Colorado case involved Brandon Coats, a customer-service 
representative for Colorado-based DISH Network. He was fired in 2010 
after failing a random drug test for marijuana, which he used to 
control leg spasms after becoming a quadriplegic in a car accident. 
He had a good employment record, and no evidence of impairment at 
work. Company attorneys successfully argued that neither mattered 
because federal law allows for zero-tolerance policies, even off the 
clock. In Coats' case, a Colorado state law allowing for "lawful" 
activity outside the workplace was trumped by the federal ban.

Medical-marijuana accommodation in the workplace is a difficult 
issue. Employers must be empowered to regulate employee performance 
and impairment, especially safety-critical industries, such as 
aerospace or trucking. And elastic definitions of a legitimate 
medical use - especially in Washington, which only recently tightened 
the definition - rightly should give employers pause.

Seattle Attorney James Shore won a 2011 Washington Supreme Court case 
on behalf of TeleTech, which had fired an employee who treated her 
migraine headaches with marijuana. But Shore said local employers are 
quietly choosing to ease workplace drug-testing rules. "When the 
thirty-something generation takes over the company, they're viewing 
things differently," said Shore, who works at the firm Stoel Rives.

The Obama administration and Congress must wake up to the brushfire 
revolt over marijuana. The simplest method would be to reclassify 
marijuana to recognize that it has medical value, which the Drug 
Enforcement Administration could do, but hasn't.

A fuller legalization bill is currently in the U.S. Senate, 
co-sponsored by the unlikely pair of Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky 
Republican running for president, and Sen. Cory Booker, the 
Democratic darling from New Jersey. A similar bill sits in the U.S. House.

Among the Washington delegation, only U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, 
D-Medina, has signed on to either version. More should, and bend 
federal drug-control law to recognize what most of the country 
already has agreed on. Medical marijuana has value and shouldn't get you fired.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom