MARIJUANA QUANDARY

A recent court decision in California highlights the ongoing dilemma
faced by medical users of marijuana. Former Air Force mechanic Gary
Ross sued after the telecommunications company he was working for
fired him over use of the drug, even though he possessed a doctor's
recommendation. Mr. Ross had been using marijuana under the state's
12-year-old Compassionate Use Act to ease chronic pain from a back
injury. He did not seek to use the drug on the job but rather on his own time.

Nevertheless, in a 5-to-2 ruling, the California Supreme Court found
that his employer had the right to fire him, which it did after he
tested positive for marijuana use. (The drug can remain in a user's
system for a lengthy period.)

This is unfair. As the dissenting justices pointed out, voters who
approved the nation's first medical-marijuana law, in 1996, probably
did not envision anyone's being forced to choose between a job and
pain relief. But the California law does not (unlike Rhode Island's)
spell out protections against employment discrimination. As a result
of last month's ruling, California state legislator Mark Leno
promised to introduce a bill that would protect employees from being
fired for off-the-job marijuana use.

This only makes sense. American workers use quite an array of
prescription drugs in their daily lives and enjoy workplace
protections for doing so, as long as they perform their jobs
adequately. Marijuana has proved effective in easing the suffering
that can go along with multiple sclerosis, AIDS, cancer and numerous
other maladies. The problem is that federal law continues to classify
it as illegal. Until the federal stance is brought into harmony with
state medical-use laws, sufferers will continue to face impossible
predicaments.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court held that state laws regarding
marijuana cannot protect users from prosecution. In California,
federal agencies have lately been shutting down medical-marijuana
dispensaries and charging those involved with felonies. The high
court's position clearly informed the California ruling. Still, the
state court at least left the door open to employment protections
under an amended law.

Unfortunately, strengthening job protections will not overcome the
main problem: How are medical users, even employed ones, to legally
acquire marijuana?

Someone in Congress should muster the fortitude to sponsor national
legislation. It need not go so far as to endorse a nationwide pot
party. But it should defer to state efforts to permit compassionate
use. Some who find relief from marijuana are among the most
desperately ill. Often, they are terminal cases. In the face of
changing views about the drug, the federal response has been
needlessly heavy-handed. In any event, the law should be changed.