Pot Advocates Have High Hopes For Jerry Brown In Gubernatorial Race: Meg Whitman Harshes Their Mellow
Medical marijuana advocates who want to end the practice of eliminating job candidates and firing employees who use pot with a doctor's okay have high hopes that gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown will get elected and sign a law that stops the practices.
In 2008 the legislature passed a bill that would have done just that, but it was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The California Supreme Court ruled previously that's it's okay to eliminate candidates and fire employees who use pot, even if they have a doctor's recommendation under the state's medical marijuana law. The only way to change that is if the next governor okays new legislation. There's little hope among pot advocates that Republican candidate Meg Whitman would do that.
The Contra Costa Times notes that even if Prop. 19 -- the initiative that would legalize possession of one ounce of marijuana for those 21 and older, with or without a doctor's recommendation -- passes, it wouldn't change the ability of employers to rule out pot users.
"If we have Jerry Brown as the next governor, I'm sure the issue will be brought to the table again," Baldwin Lee, who heads law firm Allen Matkins' employment law group in Northern California, told the paper. "If it's Meg Whitman, she would likely take the same action as Schwarzenegger."
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