UNDER BILL, MEDICAL-MARIJUANA USERS COULD BE FIRED

Employers Would Be Shielded From Lawsuits By Users

Employers could fire medical-marijuana users who fail drug tests
under a bill passed Wednesday by the Oregon Senate.

If it becomes law, the measure could shield employers from potential
lawsuits filed by medical-marijuana patients who have been fired or
disciplined for testing positive for the drug when they show up for work.

Without the bill, "employers will be left with individual lawsuits
and appeals," said Sen. Rick Metsger, D-Welches. "I believe this is
good policy for our state, and it is strongly supported by both labor
and management."

For the 12 states that allow medical marijuana, the use of the drug
by employees outside of the workplace is an increasingly complicated
- -- and legally contentious -- subject.

Michael Cohen, an employment attorney with the Philadelphia-based law
firm Wolf Block, said that only California and Montana have
provisions in their medical-marijuana statutes that clearly protect
workers from being fired or disciplined if they are state approved users.

States that don't forbid employers from taking action against workers
who use medical marijuana have created a gray area, legal experts say.

A lack of clear policy from lawmakers or legal rulings from state
courts has muddied the issue that also pits state and federal law.
The federal government classifies marijuana as having "no currently
accepted medical use in treatment."

In testimony earlier this year, several medical-marijuana cardholders
said the Oregon measure would unfairly penalize them.

They said that most drug policies are enforced through urine tests
that don't determine if users are impaired, but only if they used
cannabis within the past few weeks.

In Wednesday's debate, Sen. Floyd Prozanski agreed, calling the bill
"a very broad sweep at dealing with an issue that is going to
discriminate against individuals who have not violated the intent of
the safe workplace."

"They are not impaired; they are not under the influence while they
are at work," the Eugene Democrat said.

Prozanski said he would try to persuade the House to change the bill
so that it would not discriminate against a workers who are
cardholders under the Oregon medical-marijuana program.

Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposed the
bill, said that testing for impairment, rather than drug use, would
be a more effective way of creating safe workplaces.

Several representatives of companies said they already enforce such
policies in the interest of workplace safety and would fire an
employee who tested positive for marijuana.

In California, the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case
between a telecommunications company and Gary Ross, who uses medical
marijuana for chronic back pain from injuries suffered while in the
Air Force. Ross, who worked as a systems administrator for RagingWire
Telecommunications, was fired after he tested positive for cannabis.

Last year, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled against millwright Robert
Washburn, a registered medical-marijuana user who was fired from his
job at a Columbia Forest Products plant after urine tests detected
traces of the drug.

The court's decision avoided the central issue of marijuana use
outside of the workplace, however, ruling that Washburn's leg spasms
weren't debilitating enough to qualify him as disabled.