Weed Tastes Another Major Victory in The Workplace

September 05, 2017

Though it is a significant accomplishment, the widening experiment of the country with marijuana legalization is significantly limited in scope. In fact, the workplace is where your right to possess and consume cannabis comes to a halt. Passed in the 1980s, the broad state and federal “Drug-Free Workplace” laws give employers the ability and the right to lay-off workers for off-the-clock drug use.

The decisions of employers to drug-test workers, and then fire them if the tests revealed cannabis metabolites have been upheld by several court decisions. Fat-soluble molecules, cannabis metabolites reveal past marijuana use, often days or weeks in the past. Often, drug testing has been misused by employers: they’ve used it as an excuse to part ways with anyone they’ve wanted to fire but had no legitimate reason to do so. Indeed, this is a significant roadblock if you consider the difficulty of life in the United States or anywhere else without economic power. The good news is that this roadblock is slowly crumbling.

In July, The State Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruled in favor of woman fired by her employer for cannabis use, allowing the woman to sue her employer for handicap employer. After a doctor recommended she use it for Crohn’s Disease, Cristina Barbuto started to use cannabis which eventually led to her being fired after her first day of work at Advantage Sales. It remains to be seen if Barbuto will sue the employer or if the decision will be appealed. However, one thing is for sure: the decisions will send chills down the of the employers in the state acting similarly.

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Another similar case was reported in New York States, where a ruling was given to reinstate a cab driver who was fired for legally using medical cannabis. According to the National Law Review, the Taxi & Limousine Commission of New York City revoked the license of an anonymous driver, known only as W.R, after he was tested positive for cannabis. The TLC was ordered to return his license in an administrative hearing. Following was the basis of this ruling:

The New York Compassionate Care Act states that certified patients may not be subject to penalty or denied any right or privilege solely for the certified use of medical cannabis. As the patient certification is equivalent to a prescription, the certified use of cannabis could not establish an illegal drug use that would sever as the basis to cancel a license. Additionally, under the New York State Human Rights Law, certified patients are deemed as disabled. Since both the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human Rights Law prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability, the driver had additional protections against cancellation of his license.

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Now, making a few things clear here is important. First, this above applies to only one state and isn’t necessarily a binding, precedent-forming decision for cannabis users in other states. Second, it addresses a licensed contractor rather than an employee. Finally and most importantly, at a time when millions of Americans lives in places where recreational marijuana is legal, the decision concerns medical cannabis only. In spite of this, the Law Review firmly believes that this is another major victory or milestone for weed in the workplace. A few more victories like these and we would be on a path towards real cannabis freedom.

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