POT BILLS CONSIDER JOB RIGHTS

Employers want to ban the use of medical marijuana in the workplace,
while patients want to prohibit discrimination

Businesses and medical marijuana patients faced off Wednesday over
competing bills aimed at rebalancing each group's workplace rights.

Employers pushed legislation during a hearing that would expand their
legal rights to prohibit the use of medical marijuana in the workplace.

Patients, who oppose those bills, urged the House Business and Labor
Committee to instead pass legislation prohibiting on-the-job
discrimination based on a worker's status as a medical marijuana user.
It prevents employers from acting against workers who are medical
marijuana cardholders for smoking pot off the work site during nonwork
hours.

The committee also took up a bill introduced last week that puts state
government in charge of growing and distributing medical marijuana for
patients, who would pay a $98-per-ounce tax on their weed to cover the
state-run pot farm's expenses.

Oregon's Medical Marijuana Act, passed by voters in 1998, allows
Oregon residents to register with the state as medical marijuana
patients, based on their doctors' finding that pot may mitigate their
symptoms or debilitating conditions, ranging from Alzheimer's disease,
cancer and HIV/AIDS to severe pain, severe nausea and persistent
muscle spasms.

Rep. Mike Schaufler, D-Happy Valley, chairs the committee considering
the workplace regulation bills on medical marijuana. Schaufler also is
sponsoring a bill that would allow employers to prohibit medical
marijuana cardholders from possessing, consuming or being impaired by
pot while on the job.

Shaufler said employers should be able to prohibit medical marijuana
for all workers, not just those, such as crane operators or school bus
drivers, who can put the safety of others at risk.

"Do you want your claims adjuster to have marijuana in his system?"
Schaufler asked rhetorically.

Cary Kuvaas, a vice president with FlexForce Staffing in Springfield,
told lawmakers in written testimony that by requiring employers to
accommodate medical marijuana cardholders, the state puts them at risk
of being sued for injuries caused by impaired workers.

"I believe no Oregon employer should be required to accommodate
medical marijuana," she said.

Anthony Johnson from Voter Power, a nonprofit medical marijuana
advocacy group, said workplace accidents and injuries have decreased
since voters passed the state medical marijuana law 11 years ago.

Given that, he said, "the facts don't support the notion that such a
law is needed" to grant employers the power to fire or not hire people
because they are medical marijuana patients.

A proposal that the state grow pot for medical marijuana users and tax
it was heard in committee as a courtesy to its sponsor, according to a
spokesman for the House speaker's office, who said it wasn't expected
to become law.

Opponents said they don't want the responsibility of cultivating pot
shift from medical marijuana patients and designated growers, with the
state Department of Human Services in charge of growing and
distributing their medicine.

"What you are proposing is to discriminate against people who cannot
afford to pay for their medicine," said Madeline Martinez, the Oregon
executive director of the National Organization for Reform of
Marijuana Laws. "Please don't take away our right to grow our own medicine."