MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN THE WORKPLACE A WORRYING ISSUE

Medical marijuana seems to be a moving target, with new laws, new
regulations, new business strategies and new warnings from the federal
government all contributing to a confusing playing field.

Employers having to deal with employees who may have medical marijuana
cards, however, just want to know what they're supposed to do.

Grant Butterfield, legal counsel for Pinnacol Assurance, the worker's
compensation insurer, attempted to answer that question for local
business owners and human resource managers Tuesday morning. The
explosion in recent years in both patients and providers has made it
an issue for a growing number of employers, he said.

"There seems to be, and I don't want to alarm anyone, an epidemic of
chronic pain among 20-something males," Butterfield joked.

Butterfield reminded the group that marijuana remains an illegal drug
under federal law and Colorado's constitutional carve-out for medical
marijuana doesn't change that. Nor does Amendment 20, which legalized
medical marijuana in Colorado in 2001, require employers to change
their drug policies.

"Nothing in Amendment 20 requires an employer to accommodate the use
of medical marijuana in the workplace," he said. "There is no
requirement to allow for smoke breaks."

Pre-employment drug screening, zero tolerance policies and random
testing are all legal and, Butterfield said, a great way to screen for
potential problems, although he acknowledged that those measures can
come with their own costs.

"I gave this talk up in Estes Park and they were saying, 'We'd love to
have zero tolerance, but our summer employees all come from Boulder,'"
Butterfield said.

Mandatory drug testing after a workplace injury is another important
policy for companies to have in place, he said.

"Magically, a lot of claims go away if you require mandatory
screening," Butterfield said. "We can't preach it enough."

Another step employers can take, he said, is speaking with their
medical providers to learn their views on medical marijuana. While
employers can't dictate what care their approved doctor prescribes,
they can take their business to another provider. Until recently,
Butterfield said, 75 percent of the medical marijuana recommendations
in the state came from only 15 doctors.

Although Amendment 20 precludes health insurance plans from covering
medical marijuana, it doesn't say anything about worker's compensation
companies, Butterfield said. So far, Pinnacol's policy is not to pay
for it and no one has challenged that, he said, but he expects the
issue to come up at some point.

Several employers at the presentation said that they haven't had
significant problems with employees using medical marijuana, but that
it's something they need to keep an eye on.

"We've only seen one case for a person with a (medical marijuana
card)," said Jeff Kiersch, regional manager for Jiffy Lube. "We want
to stay on top of it and make sure we're fair to all our employees and
that we're keeping our employees and customers safe."