January 31, 2011 – SACRAMENTO, Calif. – January 31 – State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced legislation Thursday that would prevent California employers from discriminating against medical marijuana patients. Senate Bill 129 would not change current law, which prohibits employees from using medical marijuana at the workplace. According to Senator Leno, his bill “simply establishes a medical cannabis patient’s right to work.” SB 129 would reverse a 2008 California Supreme Court ruling that granted employers the right to fire or refuse to hire workers with a physician’s recommendation for medical marijuana. Advocates have estimated that more than 400,000 medical marijuana patients live in California.

“The people who voted for Proposition 215 never intended to force law-abiding patients out of a job,” said Don Duncan, California Director with Americans for Safe Access, the country’s largest medical marijuana advocacy group and sponsors of the legislation.”Like anyone else, patients just want to be productive members of society,” continued Duncan. “Why must hundreds of thousands of Californians be denied their civil rights, and be forced to live with the risk of losing their job due to their choice of medication?”

ASA was also the sponsor of a similar bill, AB 2279, which was introduced in 2008 by then-State Assemblymember Mark Leno, less than a week after the California Supreme Court ruling in Ross v. RagingWire Telecommunications. AB 2279, which had strong support from a broad coalition of disability rights, labor, medical and legal groups, passed both houses but was ultimately vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. Senator Leno and ASA will be working together over the next few weeks to shore up even greater support for the new legislation.

“This bill is not about being under the influence while at work,” said Senator Leno in a previous statement. “That’s against the law, and will remain so.” The bill leaves intact existing state law that prohibits medical marijuana consumption at the workplace or during working hours and exempts from the law “safety-sensitive” positions such as health care providers, school bus drivers, and operators of heavy equipment in order to protect employers from liability and to ensure public safety.

The California Supreme Court ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by Gary Ross who was fired in 2001 from his systems engineering job at RagingWire Telecommunications for testing positive for marijuana. Ross, a disabled medical marijuana patient in his mid-40s, was injured while in the Air Force and uses marijuana to treat chronic back pain from his injury. After losing in the court of appeal, Ross appealed, with the help of ASA, to the California Supreme Court. In rendering its decision, the court overlooked amicus “friend of the court” briefs from ten state and national medical organizations, the original co-authors of the Medical Marijuana Program Act, and disability rights groups in support of Ross and patients across California.

Since it began recording instances of employment discrimination in 2005, ASA has received hundreds of such reports from patients across California. Source.

April 16, 2010 – Workers who use pot to relieve pain or nausea can be fired for drug use even if they have a state-issued medical marijuana card, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

In a decision hailed by business groups, the court said Oregon’s medical marijuana program must give way to federal laws controlling illegal drugs. Specifically, laws that require employers to accommodate disabled workers don’t extend to medical marijuana use.

The 5-2 decision overturned an earlier Oregon Court of Appeals ruling in the case and a decision by the state Bureau of Labor and Industries, which had ordered back wages for a man who was fired by a Eugene steel fabrication firm after he acknowledged using pot.

The trade group Associated Oregon Industries said the decision “could not be better” for Oregon employers.

“The highest court in the state has now said that employers need not accommodate medical marijuana users in the workplace,” the group said in a news release. It said employers should feel free to apply “zero-tolerance” drug policies and refuse to hire applicants who fail drug tests “regardless of medical marijuana registry status.”

Medical marijuana use and the rights of disabled workers “used to be a gray area,” said Portland attorney Rich Meneghello, who specializes in employment law. But he will now advise clients they don’t have to accommodate such workers.

At its broadest application, the court’s ruling puts the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program in doubt, he said. Federal law labels marijuana an illegal drug while Oregon says medical marijuana use is legal, and the court appears to be saying federal law trumps state law, Meneghello said.

The court’s ruling, written by Justice Rives Kistler, acknowledged that conundrum.

“To be sure, the two laws are logically inconsistent; state law authorizes what federal law prohibits,” Kistler wrote.

He said Oregon’s medical marijuana act protects users from criminal prosecution under state law but did not prevent the employee from being fired for “illegal use of drugs.”

Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian called the court’s reasoning “troubling” because it undercuts a law voters approved in 1998.

“As Oregonians, we have always believed strongly in our ability to determine the right public policy within our own borders,” Avakian said in a news release.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Martha L. Walters said the ruling “wrongly limits the state’s power to make its own laws” regarding medical marijuana.

“I do not understand why … Oregon must fly only in federal formation and not, as Oregon’s motto provides, ‘with her own wings,’” Walters concluded.

A spokeswoman for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program said the ruling involves only employers and employees, and doesn’t appear to affect patients, caregivers and growers.

The case involved the 2003 firing of Anthony Scevers, a drill press operator with Emerald Steel Fabricators of Eugene. According to court records, Scevers had suffered since 1992 from anxiety, panic attacks, nausea and vomiting. He was granted a medical marijuana registry card in 2002 after a doctor determined he had a “debilitating medical condition” that was eased by smoking pot.

Scevers was hired in January 2003 on a temporary basis and was being considered for a full-time job. At the time, he was using medical marijuana one to three times a day, but not at work. Knowing he would have to pass a drug test to be hired permanently, Scevers told an Emerald Steel supervisor that he was a medical marijuana user and showed his documentation. A week later, he was fired.
View full sizeThe Cannabis Cafe in Portland’s Woodlawn neighborhood offers a place for medical marijuana users to gather with others and safely smoke.
Scevers filed a claim with the Bureau of Labor and Industries, which ruled that Scevers’ medical condition qualified as a disability under state law and that Emerald Steel should have engaged in an “interactive process” to accommodate his medical marijuana use. It ordered the company to pay Scevers $20,000 in lost wages and benefits and $25,000 for emotional suffering.

The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld the labor bureau’s decision, but the Supreme Court said both were wrong. The money awarded to Scevers remained in bond during the appeals process and was never paid.

Eugene attorney Terence Hammons, who represented Emerald Steel, said the company fired Scevers because it feared he or someone else might get injured.

“Emerald Steel has some real dangerous pieces of equipment out there,” he said. “They didn’t want someone using equipment under the influence of marijuana. The underlying concern was safety.”

Hammons said he doesn’t expect a “tremendous round of firings” because of the court decision, but it gives employers grounds to take action.

Scevers could not be reached for comment Thursday.   By Eric Mortenson.  Source.