Marijuana.com

Pompo

Court decision on medical marijuana user defies common sense
1/31/08|Capitol Weekly| by Dan Bernath

The California State Supreme Court’s 5-2 decision last Thursday allowing employers to arbitrarily fire employees solely because they are legal medical marijuana patients represents an affront to reason, the law and the will of California voters.

To read the tortured logic supporting its decision, it almost looks as if the court knew all along how it would rule in the case of Gary Ross, a legally qualified medical marijuana patient who was fired by Sacramento-based RagingWire Telecommunications for testing positive for — you guessed it — marijuana.

It should have been an easy call. Ross, who used medical marijuana to treat chronic pain related to a 1983 back injury sustained in the Air Force, had broken no state law. There is no indication that Ross ever came to work impaired in any way, or that his choice of medicine had the slightest negative impact on his work performance.

Yet RagingWire claimed that because medical marijuana is illegal under federal law, it had the right to fire Ross, and the court agreed.

The court told Ross that while the law protected him from criminal penalties for using his medicine, he had no reason to believe he should be allowed to use his medicine “without hindrance or inconvenience.”

I don’t think many people would agree that working is a convenience; there’s a reason we call it “a living.”

Perhaps the court was using the word in the sense that food, shelter or access to medical care could be considered convenient, rather than the way using specious reasoning to rationalize an unjust decision might at times be convenient.

The court also appears much too easily confused by conflicts between federal policy, which views medical marijuana through the distorted lens of its “war on drugs,” and state law, which acknowledges the mountain of evidence supporting marijuana’s medical benefits for certain patients.

Apparently, that conflict gave the court just enough intellectual top cover to decide RagingWire had the right to “take illegal drug use into consideration” when firing Ross, and that his legal use of medical marijuana somehow qualified.

State legislators have already vowed to move quickly to amend the law to specifically protect medical marijuana patients from employment discrimination. Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, has said he expects to introduce legislation within weeks, and support is already building.

But employers don’t have to wait for the law to catch up with common sense. To fire a productive employee for using doctor-recommended medication during his off hours, in a manner that doesn’t interfere at all with his work, is simply dumb. RagingWire gave up a good employee for no good reason.

It doesn’t take a legal scholar to conclude that medical marijuana should be treated by employers like any other medication needed by an employee. Lots of drugs can be misused or abused, but a worker using medicine according to his doctor’s instructions shouldn’t be subject to arbitrary punishment.

Ross never wanted to use medical marijuana at work or to come into the office under the influence of any medication. He only wished to be allowed to treat his condition, on his own time, with the best medicine available — so that he could work.

With the state facing a $14 billion budget deficit, do we really want to force productive citizens out of their jobs and onto welfare and Medi-Cal?

The California State Supreme Court’s refusal to follow the law and protect patients like Ross is its shame. But that doesn’t mean sensible, compassionate employers need to share it.

 

Hansje

What are the implications of putting together regional defensive militias and an alternative set of courts? It's a Jeffersonian notion to throw off the shackles of a government that no longer represents its people. California has the ballot initiative. It could take a while, but just the controversy alone would be publicity enough to get national attention. You do have the right to self-defense. You do have the right to protect your life and limb against someone threatening your life. If the Feds are getting in the way of people defending their lives, in other words indirectly causing the deaths of people using marijuana to save their lives, people being attacked by someone or an organized group of people such as the DEA (and this part of the war on drugs is ever more being a war on the American people) then there is a point to be made along the lines of Clausewitz that war is an extension of politics by other means. The Feds were scared of the Black Panthers and the peace movement of the Vietnam era when their movements grew too large. The Feds will give in if they see the numbers growing. Nothing makes the people in power more nervous than lots of people in the streets demonstrating or organizing against them. I'm not suggesting getting weapons to be used by this citizen's militia to overthrow or go on the offense, but they could be equipped with full body armor and shields and gas masks so that when the fascists shoot at them they will have armor and when the fascists beat them they will have protection and when the fascists throw tear gas at them to disperse them they will stand their ground. The fascists will then have to physically disperse them, and if the fascists are outnumbered they will have to retreat or use armor-piercing bullets instead of rubber bullets and batons. Water canons will be ineffective. Then the media whores will film it and show it to the public, and the public will be horrified at the slaughter of the innocent and realize finally that the war on drugs is a war on them and their brothers and sisters--the war on marijuana is a war on the people. This outrage should be used to end the war on drugs as we know it today. Who could defend the attack of government forces on the defenders of the sick and innocent and their providers? What politician would dare speak out in favor of such a slaughter? The alternate courts could be used to revoke the law enforcement status of all who take part in the war against the people, to fire them revoke their enforcement authority, take their houses and office buildings by eminent domain, alas if only in name if only as a non-binding resolution.

I mean, I'm just brainstorming and shooting the breeze here. I'm NOT suggesting anything illegal before ballot initiatives or national initiatives/referenda, but these people have to get the message somehow. Any better ideas other than just the same old stuff or waiting around for somebody else to come up with ideas or solve the problem, well, along with your criticism, I'd really love to read your ideas.

Buzzby

Hansje -

If fewer than 0.25% of America's marijuana users are willing to join and contribute to the three major pro-legalization organization, what makes you think they'd be willing to put their bodies on the line to fight the federal government? How many other people would be willing to do that? You might find yourself out there in your body armor and gas mask all by yourself.

No reason? How about the bottom line? Companies that don't drug test and exclude those who do not pass are looking at higher insurance premiums and opening themselves to lawsuits if the drug users fuck up.

__________________

MasterCylinder

You pretty much summed up the major problem the MJ legalization movement......apathy.

Hansje

where are the money bags donors when it comes to underpricing the present drug tests? if all the insurance companies are worried about is on the job use elimination to cut workmans comp costs and thus be able to lower premiums then make a test that is cheaper for businesses that detects impairment at the time of the test, which would be just before or during work hours. note $43 a test rom this site: The results are in: drug testing saves money - includes related article on a third-party administrator that insures only drug-free workplaces | Business & Health | Find Articles at BNET.com. you'd think you could promote insurance companies that treat nontesters financially favorably. you'd think they could get researching and developing them and the service industry around it in Costa Rica or India or somewhere if not in the states. ideal world.

or the u.s. could just keep building prisons til there are more people in prison than the system can afford to sustain.

 

Buzzby

What makes you think that the insurers are only concerned about on-the-job use elimination? They're concerned about liabiity. If a drug user fucks up and hurts himself, hurts others, or damages property, his positive drug test opens the employer to greater liability risks from lawsuits. The insurance companies would be paying these liability settlements and have a legitimate concern about the risks. The more risks they take, the higher the premiums would have to be.

Insurance premiums are based on the likelihood that the insurance company will have to pay off claims. Non-testers can get insurance, but they have to pay more for it. Doing otherwise would be bad business for the insurance company and their stockholders would have good reason to be unhappy about it.

MasterCylinder

Insurance companies don't care about MJ as a drug but rather as a liability risk.

kinghelwig

Iknow a guy and his dad whowere drunk at work,his dad lost the use of his left hand when the saw sliced through it,a week later my friend cut three fingers off they were able to re-attach them,they both sued and won and are sitting pretty right now,and here I sit did everything right was loyal to the co I worked for,and got laid off due to downsizing,I am scrambling to cover my ass every month,this idiot calls me up heh come on up to oregon we can fish and smoke our butts off,what a deal,my bills still call my name every month,oh well next life time.

MasterCylinder

And your point is?