Pubdate: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2011 Postmedia Network Inc. Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html Website: http://www.theprovince.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476 Author: Jonathan Martin, McClatchy-Tribune CAN POT GET YOU FIRED? Medical Use Approved, but Protection Isn't There Among the questions left unanswered by Washington's medical marijuana law: Can legal use of medical marijuana get you fired? Thirteen years after voters approved its use, that question is likely to be answered by the Washington Supreme Court, which heard a test case on the issue last month. It involves a woman fired by a Bremerton, Wash., call centre in 2006 because she failed a pre-employment drug test but had a valid authorization from a doctor. The woman, identified in court by the pseudonym Jane Roe, used marijuana at night to treat migraines. The call centre offered no evidence that the use impaired her ability to work. Michael Subit, Jane Roe's Seattle attorney, argued before the state high court that such use is implicitly protected because voters legalized it. "It would flabbergast the average voter to think, 'I've been given this right but can fired for it anyway,' " he said. Courts in other states, including Oregon and California, have ruled in favour of businesses in similar cases. Washington business groups are watching the Jane Roe case closely, anxious that the court potentially could define medical-marijuana use as a disability and therefore protect patients from firing. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.