According to CNN, A man with a rare form of cancer was prescribed marijuana by his doctor to help alleviate his pain. He lives in Michigan where medical marijuana is legal. Four months later, he was fired from his job at Walmart where he had worked for 5 years, after he failed a drug test. Now he has no job and no health insurance.
There are now 16 states and the District of Columbia where medical marijuana is legal. This protects users from criminal charges, but doesn’t protect them from being fired or getting the job to begin with.
“Without laws defending medical marijuana users from employers’ drug policies, this Michigan man and a growing number of medical marijuana users are being let go from their jobs,” says Keith Stroup on the legal counsel team of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He said his office, “receives about 300 e-mails and phone calls a year from medical marijuana users who have been fired or had job offers rescinded because of a failed drug test.”
Only Michigan, so far has addressed the issue. Part of Michigan’s law, passed in 2008, does mention employers, saying a patient carrying a medical marijuana card cannot be “denied any right or privilege” by a “business or occupational or professional licensing board.”
There are 16 states now considering legalized medical marijuana. Recently, the American Medical Association and 4 states have asked the Federal government to reclassify medical marijuana and change it into the “less restrictive” classification of a narcotic painkiller.
Two of the petitioning states, Washington and Rhode Island stated in their petition that “the vast majority of modern research” has found marijuana useful for treating patients with glaucoma, for relieving the nausea suffered by cancer patients in chemotherapy, for relieving symptoms of degenerative nerve diseases and for pain.
If you have suffered job loss or were denied a job under similar circumstances, Shpoonkle can connect you to an attorney for help.
