Katelyn Baker
Well-Known Member
While some in the business community, as well as the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, have praised the employer protections passed by the Ohio legislature in this year's medical marijuana bill, activists and civil rights advocates have voiced concerns over how the provisions would affect medical marijuana patients.
"We're grateful that Ohio has passed a medical marijuana law finally, but one of the real weaknesses of this law that we had opposed all along was the fact that it really doesn't make any allowances for people to use medical marijuana within the workplace," Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said.
Following the legalization of medical marijuana, businesses will have to consider how they will address the issue and if they will change their drug policies.
The medical marijuana bill, House Bill 523, does not require employers to accommodate medical marijuana use and allows for continued enforcement of drug-free workplace and drug testing policies. A positive drug test result is considered just cause for disciplinary action, and terminated employees would not qualify for unemployment benefits.
In a testimony to the Ohio Senate's Government Oversight and Reform committee, Don Boyd, the director of Labor and Legal Affairs for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, praised the business protections in the bill and said the provisions would be "critical to maintaining a competitive economic and legal climate" for businesses in Ohio.
"To be fair, I don't think you can accommodate perhaps 100 percent of employees using medical marijuana because there are going to be some jobs that require employees, even if just temporarily, not to be on certain medications, including medical marijuana," Daniels said. "I think that's a reasonable position, and everybody understands that, but this law makes no distinction."
Brad White, the communications chair for United Ohio, said it would be difficult to get the business community behind a medical marijuana program if the law limited their ability to maintain a drug-free work environment. United Ohio is a patient advocacy group for therapeutic cannabis use and research, according to its website.
"As an organization we absolutely would want to see protections in place for patients to make sure that they don't have issues with their work, but until such time that federal law changes, I don't think it's a realistic opportunity right now," White said.
BarryStaff, a staffing firm in Dayton, recently announced in a statement that they would not change their drug policy and would not accommodate medical marijuana use. The company said in the news release that employees would be terminated for testing positive on a drug test for marijuana use, even if that use was off-duty.
Ohio, like many other states, is an at-will employment state. According to the Ohio State Bar Association, in the absence of a contract or collective bargaining agreement, an employer can fire a worker for any reason that does not contradict the law; alternatively, an at-will employee can leave his or her employment at any time.
Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law and the creator of the Sentencing Law and Policy blog, said labor unions and employee rights groups could play a role in helping employees negotiate satisfactory contracts.
"Labor unions, employee rights groups, a variety of people who are consistently focused on balancing out the power and the legal rules between employers and employees to invest in - it would be wise, if they have a lot of persons in their industry who are concerned about this - suggesting maybe some model contract language or some employee handbook rules," Berman said.
Leigh Goldie, the founder and executive director of Empowering Epilepsy, obtained a traumatic brain injury as a child and was diagnosed with epilepsy a few years later. She has been able to live without seizures since a brain surgery she underwent around the time of her college graduation. Although she never smoked marijuana, Goldie's experience with the condition has informed her support for medical marijuana now that she knows it could potentially help those with epilepsy.
"I was on many different medications, and some of the medications - the side effects were just debilitating," Goldie said.
Goldie said in speaking with doctors, epileptics are often faced with the dilemma of taking medications and potentially experiencing those side effects or continuing to have seizures. Goldie added that certain medications work better for some people than for others, as is the case for medical marijuana.
"Medical marijuana is not necessarily going to work for everybody, and I get that, and I know its controversial, but so are all the barbiturates like Phenobarbital, Mysoline and Primidone," Goldie said. "Those are all barbiturates that I took when I was a kid."
Barbiturates fall under the category of central nervous system depressants. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, they have been used as sedatives, hypnotics, anesthetics and anticonvulsants but may sometimes be abused to reduce anxiety, decrease inhibitions and treat unwanted effects of illicit drugs. Goldie said comparable to other drugs she has taken, which caused her dizziness, double vision, vertigo, and memory issues, the effects of marijuana seem to be much less.
Berman said the concern over medical marijuana's impact on the workplace relative to other medications may stem from both misinformation and marijuana's reputation as a recreational drug, which evokes the "stoner" image.
"Medical marijuana is not being taken to get high and have fun," Goldie said. "It's being taken to lessen seizures, and they are mixing apples and oranges. These are two completely different issues."
Goldie said people with epilepsy already face discrimination and sometimes have difficulty when it comes to the workplace, often facing the question of whether not to tell prospective employers about their condition. While it might be good to notify a prospective employer about the condition and how to handle it, Goldie said it often raises a "red flag" for prospective employers due to concerns over liability.
"We're always told what we can't do. So when it comes to having a job, discrimination is prevalent for people with epilepsy," Goldie said. "Once they see us have a seizure, they don't want us. It's so discriminatory. You just don't see it, and you don't hear about it."
Goldie added that in the case of medical marijuana, she was concerned about how people with epilepsy would be affected if they were seen having a seizure at work, take their medical marijuana when they're at home and later be tested when they go back into work.
Berman said the biggest risk does not lie in a significant number of people who understand and work around the rules responsibly being fired, but it more likely lies in people not understanding the rules. Berman added that in other states that have had a medical marijuana program in place for some time, there have been some high-profile cases of employees being fired, but they don't seem to be common in a way that would indicate a large number of people are being fired for using medical marijuana.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Marijuana Advocates Express Concern About Medical Patients In The Workplace
Author: Nora Jaara
Contact: 740-592-6612
Photo Credit: Jim Mone
Website: The Athens Messenger
"We're grateful that Ohio has passed a medical marijuana law finally, but one of the real weaknesses of this law that we had opposed all along was the fact that it really doesn't make any allowances for people to use medical marijuana within the workplace," Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said.
Following the legalization of medical marijuana, businesses will have to consider how they will address the issue and if they will change their drug policies.
The medical marijuana bill, House Bill 523, does not require employers to accommodate medical marijuana use and allows for continued enforcement of drug-free workplace and drug testing policies. A positive drug test result is considered just cause for disciplinary action, and terminated employees would not qualify for unemployment benefits.
In a testimony to the Ohio Senate's Government Oversight and Reform committee, Don Boyd, the director of Labor and Legal Affairs for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, praised the business protections in the bill and said the provisions would be "critical to maintaining a competitive economic and legal climate" for businesses in Ohio.
"To be fair, I don't think you can accommodate perhaps 100 percent of employees using medical marijuana because there are going to be some jobs that require employees, even if just temporarily, not to be on certain medications, including medical marijuana," Daniels said. "I think that's a reasonable position, and everybody understands that, but this law makes no distinction."
Brad White, the communications chair for United Ohio, said it would be difficult to get the business community behind a medical marijuana program if the law limited their ability to maintain a drug-free work environment. United Ohio is a patient advocacy group for therapeutic cannabis use and research, according to its website.
"As an organization we absolutely would want to see protections in place for patients to make sure that they don't have issues with their work, but until such time that federal law changes, I don't think it's a realistic opportunity right now," White said.
BarryStaff, a staffing firm in Dayton, recently announced in a statement that they would not change their drug policy and would not accommodate medical marijuana use. The company said in the news release that employees would be terminated for testing positive on a drug test for marijuana use, even if that use was off-duty.
Ohio, like many other states, is an at-will employment state. According to the Ohio State Bar Association, in the absence of a contract or collective bargaining agreement, an employer can fire a worker for any reason that does not contradict the law; alternatively, an at-will employee can leave his or her employment at any time.
Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law and the creator of the Sentencing Law and Policy blog, said labor unions and employee rights groups could play a role in helping employees negotiate satisfactory contracts.
"Labor unions, employee rights groups, a variety of people who are consistently focused on balancing out the power and the legal rules between employers and employees to invest in - it would be wise, if they have a lot of persons in their industry who are concerned about this - suggesting maybe some model contract language or some employee handbook rules," Berman said.
Leigh Goldie, the founder and executive director of Empowering Epilepsy, obtained a traumatic brain injury as a child and was diagnosed with epilepsy a few years later. She has been able to live without seizures since a brain surgery she underwent around the time of her college graduation. Although she never smoked marijuana, Goldie's experience with the condition has informed her support for medical marijuana now that she knows it could potentially help those with epilepsy.
"I was on many different medications, and some of the medications - the side effects were just debilitating," Goldie said.
Goldie said in speaking with doctors, epileptics are often faced with the dilemma of taking medications and potentially experiencing those side effects or continuing to have seizures. Goldie added that certain medications work better for some people than for others, as is the case for medical marijuana.
"Medical marijuana is not necessarily going to work for everybody, and I get that, and I know its controversial, but so are all the barbiturates like Phenobarbital, Mysoline and Primidone," Goldie said. "Those are all barbiturates that I took when I was a kid."
Barbiturates fall under the category of central nervous system depressants. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, they have been used as sedatives, hypnotics, anesthetics and anticonvulsants but may sometimes be abused to reduce anxiety, decrease inhibitions and treat unwanted effects of illicit drugs. Goldie said comparable to other drugs she has taken, which caused her dizziness, double vision, vertigo, and memory issues, the effects of marijuana seem to be much less.
Berman said the concern over medical marijuana's impact on the workplace relative to other medications may stem from both misinformation and marijuana's reputation as a recreational drug, which evokes the "stoner" image.
"Medical marijuana is not being taken to get high and have fun," Goldie said. "It's being taken to lessen seizures, and they are mixing apples and oranges. These are two completely different issues."
Goldie said people with epilepsy already face discrimination and sometimes have difficulty when it comes to the workplace, often facing the question of whether not to tell prospective employers about their condition. While it might be good to notify a prospective employer about the condition and how to handle it, Goldie said it often raises a "red flag" for prospective employers due to concerns over liability.
"We're always told what we can't do. So when it comes to having a job, discrimination is prevalent for people with epilepsy," Goldie said. "Once they see us have a seizure, they don't want us. It's so discriminatory. You just don't see it, and you don't hear about it."
Goldie added that in the case of medical marijuana, she was concerned about how people with epilepsy would be affected if they were seen having a seizure at work, take their medical marijuana when they're at home and later be tested when they go back into work.
Berman said the biggest risk does not lie in a significant number of people who understand and work around the rules responsibly being fired, but it more likely lies in people not understanding the rules. Berman added that in other states that have had a medical marijuana program in place for some time, there have been some high-profile cases of employees being fired, but they don't seem to be common in a way that would indicate a large number of people are being fired for using medical marijuana.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Marijuana Advocates Express Concern About Medical Patients In The Workplace
Author: Nora Jaara
Contact: 740-592-6612
Photo Credit: Jim Mone
Website: The Athens Messenger
