SUED FOR FIRING WORKER ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA, WALMART ARGUES
MICHIGAN'S LAW WASN'T MEANT TO REGULATE BUSINESS

GRAND RAPIDS -- Joseph Casias, who suffers an inoperable brain tumor,
is the kind of patient voters had in mind in approving medical-marijuana use.

His firing at Walmart, after a positive drug test, undermines the law
- -- and forces people like Casias "to choose between their jobs and
their medicine," Scott Michelman, an American Civil Liberties Union
attorney, said Friday.

Casias and the ACLU consider his firing to be a wrongfully
termination, and sued Walmart and Casias' supervisor at the Battle
Creek store where he worked. In a hearing Friday in U.S. District
Court, Casias asked to have the case remanded to Calhoun County
Circuit Court, where it was filed originally, while Walmart asked to
have the case dismissed.

Judge Robert Jonker said he would issue a written opinion.

Casias, 30, said after the hearing that he was grateful to have his
case heard in court. Speaking barely above a whisper, with his wife,
Angie, and several attorneys, at his side, he said he was "not well."

He used medical marijuana after working his shift. He did not use
marijuana at work, his attorneys said. After a workplace accident
last year, he tested positive for marijuana and was fired, despite
being legally registered to use the drug.

His oncologist recommended he try using marijuana because the drugs
he was using brought "only minimal relief and cause severe nausea,"
his attorneys said in a statement.

"Employers should not get between employees and their doctors,"
Michelman said. He said Walmart doesn't have to accommodate Casias
using marijuana on the job, "but they do have to refrain from firing him."

The judge questioned why Michelman's assertion wasn't stated
explicitly in the medical-marijuana law, and suggested the ACLU was
making a "sweeping claim of protection" under the law. Walmart says
the ACLU's interpretation of the medical-marijuana law "puts
employers between a 'rock and a hard place,'" court records said.

Like many employers, it has a policy prohibiting the use of illegal
drugs. It cited federal law that prohibits possessing and growing
marijuana, and said that the medical-marijuana law does not regulate
employers -- rather it protects users against being charged with a state crime.

"It doesn't make sense that the (medical-marijuana) act was meant to
regulate businesses," Walmart attorney Michael Palmer said.

"The statute meant to decriminalize , not provide (civil)
protection," he said. "It's still illegal under the federal statute."

The law passed overwhelmingly in 2008, but it has caused controversy
throughout the state. In Wyoming, city leaders banned medical
marijuana, prompting retired attorney John Ter Beek to file suit this
week in Kent County Circuit Court. He said he has a medical-marijuana
license because of a bad back and diabetes pain, and said the city is
violating rights of voters who passed the law.