Medical Marijuana Users Might be Protected From Getting Fired Under California Bill That's Gaining Traction

By Dennis Romero Wed., Apr. 6 2011 at 8:05 AM

Working and playing?

Good news, stoners:

A movement that would hogtie California employers who want to fire you for partaking of your medicine (while off-duty, of course) is a little closer to becoming law this week.

The State Senate Judiciary Committee just said yes to Sen. Mark Leno's bill that would prohibit your boss from firing you simply because you're a medical marijuana user. Leno, a San Francisco Democrat, sounded victorious:

When Californians approved the compassionate use of cannabis, they never intended for it to apply only to unemployed people. With unemployment at record-high rates, we should be doing everything we can to keep productive and responsible members of the workforce in their jobs.

Americans for Safe Access explains the origins of the bill:

SB 129 would reverse a 2008 California Supreme Court ruling in Ross v. RagingWire that granted employers the right to fire or refuse to hire workers with a physician's recommendation for medical marijuana ...

Of course, it wouldn't apply to operators of heavy equipment, health care providers, school bus drivers, and clowns. (We kid about that last one).

And no, you can't smoke at work or even be high there and seek protection under this deal if it passes.

What we want to know is how slighted employees would prove it was their medical use that did them in when California employers can fire you for no reason at all.

Tags:

dispensaries, employment, marijuana, Mark Leno, medical marijuana, pot shops, workplace

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Thomas J. Coleman

Query: If using medical marijuana as recomended by an MD makes you a "stoner" does using Prozac (similarly recommended) make you a druggie?

I'd love to go to a jury repping a fired employee when the boss claims discharge "for no reason at all." Any juror with an IQ exceeding that of a potted plant knows there is always a reason; "no reason" is a literally non-existent cover for an illegal reason, whether race, religion, marital status, disability (and treatment thereof) etc.

As Robert Penn Warren wrote in "All the King's Men:" "Man is conceived in sin and born of corruption and he passeth in the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something."

And there is always a reason.

jme

Actually theres a state law thats been in effect since 2005...most employers dont know about this and it ends up biting them on the ass when they appear in unempolyment court trying to deny benefits..if a company fires you for any kind of drug use and doesnt offer drug treatment instead, that employer will lose when trying to deny unemployment benefits..they are not allowed to just fire you anymore over drug abuse, even marijuana abuse., assembly bill 1577 was put in place in 2005 which reconizes drug use as a mental disease and the labor of workforce holds employers accountable to let loose drug addicts without offering treatment.. when my ex employer told the unemployment dept. I was fired for being stoned on the job, the EDD folks told me that if this was true and the ex employer just let me go without offering drug traetment, then I would recieve my benefits, which I did..