POT USERS SLAMMED IN RULING

Employer Justified In Firing Worker Over Positive Drug-Test Result

Alberta's top court has dealt a blow to the province's pot smokers
with a ruling upholding workplace drug-testing policies that were at risk.

In a new decision from the Alberta Court of Appeal, a trio of judges
overturned a controversial ruling from Justice Sheilah Martin that
drew scorn from 2006 Tory leadership candidate Ted Morton. In that
case, Martin ruled that a Fort McMurray employer discriminated
against a worker named John Chiasson by firing him over a positive
drug-test result.

The case turned on the question of whether Chiasson's use of
marijuana in 2002 qualified him as disabled and whether, as a
result, his employer had a duty to accommodate his condition.

While Chiasson himself admitted he was only a casual user of the
drug, Martin accepted that in firing everyone who tests positive for
drugs, engineering and construction company Kellog, Brown and Root
(KBR) had essentially treated him as though he were an addict and
therefore disabled.

As a result, the company had a duty to be more flexible in its
testing policies by, for example, allowing for a wash-out period
that would let recreational drug users get the drug out of their
blood, Martin ruled. The theory was that occasional smokers don't
necessarily pose a safety risk at work.

The Court of Appeal judges, however, ruled otherwise.

"Extending human rights protections to situations resulting in
placing the lives of others at risk flies in the face of logic,"
they wrote, noting that despite Chiasson's insistence that his drug
use was his business, the effects of marijuana can linger for days.