Employers Have Interest in Medicinal Marijuana Law, Too
October 19th, 2007 by josh farley
Josh Farley writes:
It isn’t just law enforcement and the state’s prosecutors that face challenges interpreting the state’s medicinal marijuana law — one that’s ambiguous in its nature and has no federal validity.
A lawsuit filed in Kitsap County Superior Court in February alleges a Kitsap woman was fired for failing a drug test — despite her disclosure to the company that she was a legal medical marijuana user under state law.
“Jane Roe” — whose actual name isn’t being used because of the
federal prohibition of all marijuana — is suing TeleTech Holdings
Inc., where she worked briefly as a customer service consultant in
October 2006 before her termination. Her attorney, Michael Subit,
of Seattle, says Roe used pot legally under the law for an illness
but was still fired.
A tentative hearing before Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Sally Olsen Dec. 14 will aim to answer this question, Subit said: Does Washington Law prohibit an employer from terminating an employee who uses at-home medical marijuana in accordinance with the state’s med marijuana law?
“We hope to establish a precedent,” Subit said of the case, but because it is a new frontier in law, also cautioned: “There’s a good chance a Kitsap County judge won’t have the last word on this.”
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Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
October 19th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Yes… the employer should have the right to terminate employment for failing a drug test or pot smoking, legal or otherwise.
Although if the employer hired the person with statement written on her application that she used marijuana for health reasons and it was confirmed in a written statement by her doctor, the employer can’t fire her for failing a drug test for marijuana.
Have any studies been done to prove smoking marijuana over time changed the brain’s ability to think and reason?
Sharon O’Hara