Pubdate: Wed, 01 Oct 2014
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Associated Press
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Author: Sadie Gurman, Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)

MED POT FIRING CASE MULLED

Colorado court to rule on legality of dismissing employee who smoked 
legally on his own time

Pot may be legal in Colorado, but you can still be fired for using 
it. Now, the state's highest court is considering whether workers' 
off-duty use of medical marijuana is protected under state law.

Colorado's Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in a case 
involving Brandon Coats, a quadriplegic medical marijuana patient who 
was fired by the Dish Network after failing a drug test in 2010. 
Coats said he never got high at work. But pot's intoxicating 
chemical, THC, can stay in the system for weeks.

Coats says his pot smoking is allowed under a little-known state law 
intended to protect employees from being fired for legal activities 
off the clock. But the company argues that because pot remains 
illegal at the federal level, medical marijuana isn't covered by the state law.

The case is being watched closely around the country and could have 
big implications for pot smokers in the first state to legalize 
recreational sales of the drug. Though the Colorado case involves 
medical marijuana, the court's decision could also affect how 
companies treat employees who use the drug recreationally.

Tuesday's arguments highlighted the clash between state laws that are 
increasingly accepting of marijuana use and employers' drug-free 
policies that won't tolerate it.

"This case need not be an endorsement or an indictment of medical 
marijuana" but a chance to set standards for employee conduct, Dish 
attorney Meghan Martinez told the justices, who could rule in the 
coming weeks or months. "It's a zero-tolerance policy. It doesn't 
matter if he was impaired or not."

Coats, 35, was paralyzed in a car crash as a teenager and has been a 
medical marijuana patient since 2009, when he discovered that pot 
helped calm violent muscle spasms. Coats was a telephone operator 
with Dish for three years before he failed a random drug test in 2010 
and was fired. He said he told his supervisors in advance that he 
probably would fail the test.

Coats' case comes to the justices after a trial court judge and 
Colorado's appeals court upheld his firing, saying pot can't be 
considered lawful if it is outlawed at the federal level. "We're 
getting very confused and mixed messages from everywhere," said 
Coats' attorney, Michael Evans.

He asked the court to issue a narrow ruling that would apply to 
people like Coats: those in nonhazardous jobs who are not impaired at 
work and whose employers don't have federal contracts that could be 
jeopardized.

Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., allow medical marijuana. 
Colorado and Washington state also now allow recreational sales, 
though court cases so far have involved medical patients.

Colorado's constitution specifically says that employers don't have 
to amend their policies to accommodate employees' marijuana use. But 
Arizona law says workers can't be punished for lawfully using medical 
marijuana unless it would jeopardize an employer's federal contract.

State Supreme Courts in California, Montana and Washington state have 
all ruled against fired patients. A lawsuit filed by a physician 
assistant in New Mexico who said she was fired for using medical 
marijuana, which helps with her post-traumatic stress disorder, is 
still pending.

"I'm not going to be able to get a job in the near future, so if I 
can fight the fight and hopefully change that, that's what I am going 
to do," said Coats.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom