CAN POT GET YOU FIRED?

Medical Use Approved, but Protection Isn't There

Among the questions left unanswered by Washington's medical marijuana
law: Can legal use of medical marijuana get you fired?

Thirteen years after voters approved its use, that question is likely
to be answered by the Washington Supreme Court, which heard a test
case on the issue last month.

It involves a woman fired by a Bremerton, Wash., call centre in 2006
because she failed a pre-employment drug test but had a valid
authorization from a doctor.

The woman, identified in court by the pseudonym Jane Roe, used
marijuana at night to treat migraines. The call centre offered no
evidence that the use impaired her ability to work.

Michael Subit, Jane Roe's Seattle attorney, argued before the state
high court that such use is implicitly protected because voters
legalized it. "It would flabbergast the average voter to think, 'I've
been given this right but can fired for it anyway,' " he said.

Courts in other states, including Oregon and California, have ruled in
favour of businesses in similar cases.

Washington business groups are watching the Jane Roe case closely,
anxious that the court potentially could define medical-marijuana use
as a disability and therefore protect patients from firing.