A REASONABLE END TO POT KERFUFFLE

Oregon's medical marijuana law, passed by initiative in 1998, is as
much about sanctioning pot use as it is about treating the symptoms of illness.

That's why the list of symptoms contained in the law is so
all-encompassing (it includes severe pain, severe nausea and
"cachexia," or emaciation). And it's why the case of one
Robert Washburn, resolved last month by the state Supreme Court, is
worth mentioning.

Washburn suffers from leg spasms that wake him up at night. He used
to control them by taking a prescription drug, but eventually he
began medicating himself with marijuana before bedtime. The pot did
help him sleep, but it also got him sacked. His employer, Columbia
Forest Products, fired him after he flunked a workplace drug test.

Washburn sued, but lost in trial court. Then - shockingly - he
managed to convince a three-judge appellate panel that his dismissal
amounted to illegal workplace discrimination. The court decided that
Washburn is, for legal purposes, disabled, and that Columbia Forest
Products failed to make a reasonable accommodation for his disability.

The case then went to the Supreme Court, which said, in effect,
"yeah, right."

The court pointed out, sensibly, that Washburn's spasms don't amount
to a disability in this context for the simple reason that he can
ameliorate them by taking medication.

If the law were to consider all treatable conditions disabilities,
Judge Paul De Muniz wrote, "an individual who controls his or
her hypertension through medication - as many today do - nevertheless
would be considered a 'disabled person' simply because the individual
had the condition."

The court's opinion, of course, doesn't preclude a different outcome
for a genuinely disabled person in Washburn's situation. But it
should bring some relief to employers who, for a variety of good
reasons, object to wholly gratuitous violations of drug-free
workplace policies.

And it should send a sobering message to those who consider Oregon's
medical marijuana law a blanket invitation to spark up.

That isn't to say those who favor the legalization of marijuana
should stop pursuing their goal. We do wish, though, they'd be honest
about what it is they're trying to do rather than pushing smoke
screens like Oregon's medical pot law.

If they convince enough people that pot should be legalized, sooner
or later it will be.