Court Says Workers May Be Fired for Using Medical Marijuana

Jan 24, 09:00 PM

By a 5-2 vote, the High Court ruled that the state's California's Compassionate Use Act of 1996 does not extend rights to medical marijuana users in the workforce, abnegating claims that the state's Fair Employment and Housing Act ought to protect this class of employees as the drug remains illegal under federal law.

"Nothing in the text or history of the Compassionate Use Act suggests the voters intended the measure to address the respective rights and duties of employers and employees," Associate Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote in the majority opinion. "Under California law, an employer may require pre-employment drug tests and take illegal drug use into consideration in making employment decisions."

The case before the court centered on a discrimination claim by Gary Ross over his 2001 firing from Sacramento telecommunications firm RagingWire.

Ross, 45, has been under a physician's recommendation to use marijuana to treat a longtime back injury he had sustained while in the Air Force. Court documents stated that Ross had notified RagingWire earlier about his medical marijuana use but ultimately lost his job as a lead systems administrator after his drug test came back positive.

Shortly after the opinion was issued Thursday, Ross said he never expected to win this "test case" over medical marijuana but felt he had exposed where the state stands on the controversial drug issue:

"This shows the heavy handedness of the federal government. Where is the sovereignty in California?" Ross said. "What did the state get in passing Proposition 215? A bunch of unemployable people?"

At a hearing in November, Ross' attorneys Stewart Katz of Sacramento and Joseph Elford of San Francisco told the Supreme Court that the Fair Employment and Housing Act requires employers to make "reasonable accommodations" for workers who have disabilities. They said that Ross' use of marijuana was part of a medical treatment for a disability.

The Court disagreed and supported arguments by RagingWire's attorney Robert M. Pattison who said that employees, by allowing medical pot use, will make themselves vulnerable to disruptive searches by federal authorities because the state's law continues to run afoul the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Pattison has also cited arguments from the state's 3rd District Court of Appeal, which ruled against Ross in 2005, noting that drug use results in increased absenteeism from work, diminished productivity and greater health care costs _ all legitimate considerations for employers looking at job applicants.

In her dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Joyce L. Kennard said the ruling "disrespects the will of California's voters" who passed the law never intending that it would affect the employment of medicinal marijuana users.

It was not immediately clear early Thursday how the state court's decision would affect legal questions and case law in several of the 11 other states which adopted medical marijuana laws modeled after California's Compassionate Use Act.

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