Is Pot Legal Or Not? Your Boss Says Not
People in California who use marijuana, even if it is recommended by their doctors, may be legally fired from their jobs if they fail a drug screening test.
The California Supreme Court has recently issued a 5-2 ruling that allows employers to fire employees who fail drug screenings and test positive for marijuana, even if they use marijuana for medical reasons. Since 1996, California law has permitted the use of medical marijuana. However, under federal law, the production and possession of marijuana is a criminal offense and its use is not permitted, even with a doctor's recommendation. Despite the legalization of marijuana use for medical purposes in twelve states, the Controlled Substances Act is a federal law that trumps the individual states' laws.
The medical use of marijuana is permitted with a doctor's approval in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Arizona has also passed a law allowing the use of medical marijuana, but as of yet there has been no formal program established to administer prescription marijuana.
Yahoo News reports that Justice Kathryn Werdegar of the California Supreme Court wrote in her opinion, "Under California law, an employer may require preemployment drug tests and take illegal drug use into consideration in making employment decisions."
Many people oppose any usage of marijuana, even for medical reasons. Since it is a drug with intoxicating effects that is widely used for recreational purposes, it is difficult even for those sympathetic to the cause to truly consider it to really be a medication. It is also a drug that is commonly abused, although unless a person under the influence of marijuana gets behind the wheel of a vehicle or decides to operate machinery, the effects of the abuse are largely personal.
The recent ruling by the California Supreme Court was not the first time a court has ruled against advocates of medical marijuana. In March 2007, a federal court in San Francisco, California ruled that a woman who was suffering with an inoperable brain tumor could not legally smoke marijuana for medical purposes although some medical studies have indicated that marijuana can slow the growth of such tumors.
With this most recent ruling, the California Supreme Court upheld the firing of Gary Ross from RagingWire Telecommunications based on his medical marijuana usage.
Ross was offered a job at RagingWire Telecommunications in 2001, but after he failed a drug screening test by testing positive for marijuana he was fired. He filed a lawsuit against the company because he alleged that it failed to make reasonable accommodations for his disability. Ross has been using medical marijuana since 1999 when his doctor recommended it for back pain.
The California Supreme Court ruling in this case, and the rulings against medical marijuana use in other cases, simply prove that state laws allowing medical marijuana use are in conflict with federal law. And there will continue to be conflict over the usage of medical marijuana unless and until there is a definitive nationwide law either completely banning its usage, or even more unlikely, legalizing its usage on a federal level.