cannabisnews.com: Common Sense, Laws Collide on Medical Marijuana





Common Sense, Laws Collide on Medical Marijuana
Posted by CN Staff on May 09, 2003 at 12:22:46 PT
By Bill Kettler, Mail Tribune
Source: Medford Mail Tribune 
Simple answers were scarce Thursday when the topic was medical marijuana in the workplace. What does "use" mean when it refers to medical marijuana? Can an employer with a "zero-tolerance" drug policy fire an employee who tests positive for marijuana if the worker has a medical marijuana card? Those questions and many others surfaced when Southern Oregon Drug Awareness sponsored a daylong program in Medford.
About 20 people listened to an attorney, a federal drug agent and a physician talk about marijuana, its controversial role as medicine and the problems medical marijuana raises for employers. Oregon’s medical marijuana law effectively decriminalizes certain uses of cannabis, said Portland attorney Lynda Hartzell. The law "gives people with certain debilitating medical conditions the right to use marijuana without fear of prosecution."Hartzell said the law is vague, however, when it comes to workers who want to use marijuana as medicine. The law says employers do not have to allow workers to use pot on the job, but it is silent on what "use" means. If "use" were defined as ingesting cannabis by smoking or eating, the law would mean workers couldn’t consume pot on the job. But if "use" of marijuana as medicine means a low-level presence in the system — like that of any other legal (or illegal) drug — then in theory employers who have a zero-tolerance drug policy could fire employees who test positive for pot.But it’s not necessarily that simple, Hartzell said. Workers who use marijuana as medicine to treat a disability may be protected by the Oregon Disabilities Act. If so, even employers who have a no-drug policy would have to offer workers some other way to treat their disability rather than dismiss them.A case currently before the Oregon Court of Appeals may clarify some of the issues. A Klamath County man who had a medical marijuana card sued Columbia Forest Products after he was fired for violating the company’s no-drug policy. The court is expected to rule sometime this summer.Hartzell said companies with no-drug policies can protect themselves from medical marijuana lawsuits by writing drug rules that prevent employees from having illicit drugs in their system, and by making an effort to help workers treat their medical condition with something other than marijuana."You have to give a reasonable accommodation," she said, "but not necessarily the one the employee chooses."Following Hartzell’s remarks, Bill Etter of the Drug Enforcement Administration offered one of the few definitive statements of the day when he said that all marijuana use is illegal under federal law. "Marijuana would have to be reclassified (in the federal Controlled Substances Act) to be legal medicine," Etter said."There’s not a lot of leeway in the DEA’s attitude about this," he said.Dr. Jon Gell said marijuana use has clear physiological effects. It reduces reaction time and diminishes "executive function" — the ability to make decisions, plan for the future, focus attention and adapt to changing circumstances. Gell suggested employers might want to evaluate medical marijuana use on a case-by-case basis depending on the nature of a person’s job and the consequences that a mistake might create. An advertising copywriter on medical marijuana, for example, would have little opportunity to wreak havoc compared to, say, a long-haul truck driver.Gell, the medical staff director for Medford’s two hospitals, said there are few tests to measure impairment from marijuana. It’s also hard to tell whether a particular individual using marijuana is going to have problems in the workplace.Source: Medford Mail Tribune (OR)Author: Bill Kettler, Mail TribunePublished: May 9, 2003 Copyright: 2003 The Mail TribuneContact: letters mailtribune.comWebsite: http://www.mailtribune.com/Related Article & Web Sites:SOMM-NEThttp://www.somm-net.org/Hemp & Cannabis Foundationhttp://www.thc-foundation.org/Group To Help People Use Pot as Medicine http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16094.shtml
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