cannabisnews.com: 'What Were They Smoking?'
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'What Were They Smoking?'
Posted by CN Staff on February 26, 2013 at 13:11:19 PT
By Roxanne Wilson, Contributor
Source: Forbes Magazine
USA -- The federal government says there is no such thing as “medical” marijuana. Despite that, an increasing number of states have legalized the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, and a couple, so far, have okayed recreational use of marijuana for adults.In the medical context, doctors often prescribe marijuana to manage chronic pain, and those patients must register in a confidential patient database. Registration triggers issuance of registry identification cards so recipients avoid criminal liability. Because many such patients are in the workforce, however, employers need to be aware of existing medical marijuana laws and pending legislation in each state where they employ workers.
The states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington currently legalize marijuana use for varying reasons. Washington and Colorado approved recreational marijuana use by adults, with regulations to monitor its possession, use and sale.Expect more smoke. In 2013, Alabama, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, New Hampshire, Maryland, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and West Virginia introduced bills to make marijuana use lawful. On February 21 2013, for instance, Maryland Democratic Delegate Curt Anderson introduced a bill to legalize and tax marijuana use by “over 21” adults. The titles of several of these proposed bills contain words like “compassionate use” and “compassion and care” that reveal or suggest empathy for individuals with chronic pain who, with marijuana, want to function and work with less or no pain.Some existing and pending state laws place specific restrictions on the management of employees who are registered medical marijuana users. In other states, however, regulations state that “their” laws do not deprive businesses from maintaining a drug-free workplace. Still other states have yet to address application of their marijuana laws to the workplace while their regulations remain embryonic.In California, Colorado, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, businesses need not currently accommodate employees who legally use marijuana for medicinal purposes. Washington’s statute, for example, says that employers may establish drug-free work policies, and nothing in it requires accommodating the medical use of marijuana. Others are not so clear, forcing employers to develop what sometimes must be “best guess” workplace policies to comply with “fog-filled” laws.Marijuana use laws in Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, and Rhode Island expressly forbid businesses from refusing to hire applicants and from disciplining and otherwise adversely affecting the employment of registered medical marijuana card holders based solely on that status. Arizona and Delaware extend that by forbidding businesses from refusing to hire applicants or disciplining employees on the basis of drug tests that reveal marijuana components or metabolites. There are exceptions to these rules where, for example, the employees are “impaired” by marijuana while on an employer’s property and/or during work hours. But in those states, employed medical marijuana card holders are not “impaired” simply because marijuana components or metabolites are “in” their systems. Even worse, there currently are no bright-line tests for marijuana “intoxication” comparable to those for alcohol intoxication. That means employers in disciplining “impaired” employees will have to rely on observations of an employee’s behavior to prove impairment and avoid liability if the employees file a charge or sue.With the changing landscape of state regulation, businesses cannot rely on federal classification of marijuana as a Schedule I substance (meaning it has no currently accepted medical use and has high potential for abuse). Instead, the federal-state “tug of war” means that every employer must be on “high alert” to ever-broadening marijuana use state laws and regulations.Employers also need to educate law-makers as to the practicalities of employing marijuana users so any legislation passed can and does avoid unintended, harsh, and perhaps dangerous workplace consequences. Here are examples of opportunities for workplace input. In Colorado, there is a task force to propose regulations for its new use laws. Massachusetts health officials held three public “listening sessions” during February to help draft the regulations for the medical marijuana law passed by voters in November 2012.Employers also should ensure that their human resources professionals and management teams are knowledgeable about the marijuana laws in each state where they employ workers, including updating their policies.As more and more states relax the use of marijuana, perhaps, in part, because tax revenues from the sale of marijuana can help solve budget woes, business owners will also need pain management.* Barbra Diallo also contributed to the content of this article.Source: Forbes Magazine (US)Author: Roxanne Wilson, ContributorPublished: February 26, 2013Copyright: 2013 Forbes Inc.Contact: readers forbes.comWebsite: http://www.forbes.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/HGZW3w7LCannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml 
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Comment #9 posted by Hope on March 02, 2013 at 09:49:48 PT
Kap
I hate for you to say it, too, because you've always been right in your predictions of what's going to happen as far as the prohibs behavior towards those they persecute.*sigh*
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Comment #8 posted by kaptinemo on February 27, 2013 at 19:37:30 PT:
Canis420, I hate to say this, but it will 
get worse.That raid was pure spite, a chance to get 'their licks in' before the game changes and they're left unable to attack those they hate with impunity.The prohibs are losing. In fact, they have already lost...by losing an entire generation. A generation that was specifically targeted with propaganda techniques in order to inculcate in them the same mindless support for the DrugWar that the generation before them provided.The cynical intent was mainly to continue the DrugWar gravy train...for the express benefit of the DrugWarriors, alone. The DrugWarriors have admitted as much, with their asinine declaration that the DrugWar was meant to be waged, but never won. That could only happen if the intended 'marks' in the DrugWarrior's prohibition 'con game' were to vote the 'prohib ticket' by voting for prohib pols who'd vote for appropriations for prohibition policies.What is happening is the exact opposite. The DARE generation has repudiated both the DrugWar...and the DrugWarriors.Even worse for the DrugWarriors, that generation is not going to want to pay their taxes to maintain drug prohibition. And they will not vote for pols who propose they do.As the old hackneyed TV commercial goes, 'But wait, there's more!' Even worse for the prohibs, after legalization will come the question of why, since prohibition will have ended, should the police be allowed to demand all that money and keep all those dangerous 'toys' they've been getting from Uncle to fight inanimate objects. No more steak and caviar and champagne at the public's expense, monetary and otherwise; it's back to kibble and a salary more in line with their actual role in society. And they better take that and be glad, lest there be Congressional committees patterned after the Church Committee, chaired by members of the ex-DARE generation, who want an accounting for all the damage, civil and monetary, that the DrugWarriors cost society. And that's what they really fear and hate.So...from a historical viewpoint, the leadership of most losing armies historically becomes more fanatical towards the end, even to the point of executing their own for insufficiently loud enough support for a lost cause in the face of obvious impending defeat. You may expect that the DrugWarriors will become ever more vicious as they realize the straits they're in. 
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Comment #7 posted by The GCW on February 27, 2013 at 00:35:46 PT
I like the way they put it in this article.
Physicist: If All Science Were Run Like Marijuana Research, Creationists Would Control Paleontologyhttp://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2013/02/26/Physicist-If-All-Science-Were-Run-Marijuana-Research-Creationists-Would-Control-P...
[…]
Consider what American science might look like if all research were run like marijuana research is being run now. Suppose the Institute for Creation Science were put in charge of approving paleontology digs and the science of human evolution. Imagine what would happen to the environment if we gave coal and oil companies the power to block any climate research they didn’t like.
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Comment #6 posted by The GCW on February 27, 2013 at 00:02:04 PT
Canis420,
In Raid of the Day, it was asked why the thugs used ski masks?They should be ashamed of themselves, that's why. They'd be humiliated and they know it. they must hide their identity for fear of reprisals, perhaps.Cannabis for the sick is supported by a great majority in Florida.SWATSTIKA.
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Comment #5 posted by Canis420 on February 26, 2013 at 22:28:30 PT:
Raid of the Day
Raid Of The Day: Florida Cops Raid Cathy Jordan, Medical Marijuana Activist Who Suffers From Lou Gehrig's Disease They did this after the miami herald article (posted here at cnews on 25th) regarding new poll results on MMJ in Fl and the bill in her name.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/raid-of-the-day-florida-c_n_2765920.html
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Comment #4 posted by Hope on February 26, 2013 at 18:52:04 PT
Aye, Kaptin. Me, too.
"More and more, I rejoice that I am alive to see these days." 
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Comment #3 posted by mexweed on February 26, 2013 at 16:27:34 PT:
The way aroundDrug Tests-- entrepreneurism!
1. Despite myths about "recreational" use (what's that? Alcohol is the WRECK-creational drug) the main message and use for humans of cannabis is INSPIRATION-- i.e. a very little toke should be enough to set off your L.E.A.P.Memory-- Long-term Episodic Associative Performance Memory-- so that you resynthesize various ideas, invent something terrific and go into bizness (you're the boss, no drug tests) producing and marketing it. 2. After legalization, increased popularity of VAPOURISERS and "one-hitters" replacing combustion monoxide rolling papers will eliminate most "cannabis pathology", and cannabis itself will also mostly REPLACE far more deadly $igarette addiction and binge drinking. This will kill off today's irrational distrust of cannabis. However, the way to make that happen is to make billions of one-hitters! Read, revise, pictorialize, improve the wikiHow.com/"Make Smoke Pipes From Everyday Objects" article!
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Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on February 26, 2013 at 15:42:44 PT:
The pendulum is swinging back
For the longest time, Big Business has bent the American worker over a desk, by using drug testing as a means of (unwarranted) social control of workers outside the workplace.But now?"Marijuana use laws in Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, and Rhode Island expressly forbid businesses from refusing to hire applicants and from disciplining and otherwise adversely affecting the employment of registered medical marijuana card holders based solely on that status. Arizona and Delaware extend that by forbidding businesses from refusing to hire applicants or disciplining employees on the basis of drug tests that reveal marijuana components or metabolites. There are exceptions to these rules where, for example, the employees are “impaired” by marijuana while on an employer’s property and/or during work hours. But in those states, employed medical marijuana card holders are not “impaired” simply because marijuana components or metabolites are “in” their systems. Even worse, there currently are no bright-line tests for marijuana “intoxication” comparable to those for alcohol intoxication. That means employers in disciplining “impaired” employees will have to rely on observations of an employee’s behavior to prove impairment and avoid liability if the employees file a charge or sue. (Emphasis mine -k.)'Worse'...for whom? Not the American people, that's for sure. But that article makes it abundantly clear why we have always faced such a hard road; the Investor Class's desire to control every aspect of their worker's lives via faux 'safety' legislation intent upon stripping workers of their rights and reducing them to the level of the machines they operate. Been like that for 30 years, now.But 30 years is a generation, and a new generation is arising that will brook no such interference, and they're fighting back at the Achille's Heel of the control freaks. And they'll win, if only through sheer numbers. More and more, I rejoice that I am alive to see these days. 
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on February 26, 2013 at 15:23:14 PT
Medical Marijuana Bill Unveiled in House
February 25, 2013Flanked by more than 150 advocates from around the country, Oregon Democrat Earl Blumenauer on Monday put forward his legislation allowing states to legalize medical marijuana in an effort to end the confusion surrounding federal pot policy.Blumenauer’s legislation, which has 13 co-sponsors — including GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California — would create a framework for the FDA to eventually legalize medicinal marijuana. It would also block the feds from interfering in any of the 19 states where medical marijuana is legal.
Continue ReadingAt a press conference outside the Capitol, Blumenauer didn’t attack the Drug Enforcement Administration for targeting marijuana dispensaries or blame the Justice Department for forcing marijuana businesses to operate in a legal gray zone. Instead, he pitched his legislation as a solution to the confusion surrounding federal marijuana policy.URL: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/bill-unveiled-to-legalize-medical-pot-88031.html
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