Fired for legally smoking pot: The coming Colorado crackdown
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/03/fired_for_legally_smoking_pot_the_coming_colorado_crackdown/
Friday, Jan 3, 2014 07:30 AM CST
Even if your state starts letting you smoke pot, your boss might not. Here's what happened to Brandon Coats
Josh Eidelson
On New Years Day, Colorado became the first state in which its legal to recreationally smoke pot. But that doesnt mean its not a fireable offense. Under U.S. law, private companies can fire employees for almost anything they do at home or at work. And while Colorado has bucked the trend by banning firings for lawful outside-work activities, that protection doesnt extend to pot.
Brandon Coats, right, with his attorney, Michael Evans, left. (Credit: AP/Ed Andrieski)
Im not going to get better any time soon, paraplegic plaintiff Brandon Coats told reporters after his 2010 firing by Dish Network was upheld in a precedent-setting Colorado Court of Appeals case last April. I need the marijuana, and I dont want to go the rest of my life without holding a job. As the Denver Post reported, Coats alleged he was illegally fired by the cable company Dish Network for using medical marijuana to mitigate muscle spasms. (Coats was fired three years before Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana use; his case rested on the states Medical Marijuana Amendment, which went into effect in 2009.) Dish did not respond to Salons Thursday morning inquiry.
If Mr. Coats cant win this case, then nobody can, Coats attorney Michael Evans told Salon. Hes about as bad as you can get in terms of physical disability He was a great employee, and they admit that he was never impaired [at work] He was following all of the laws.
Evans firing and Appeals Court setback have sobering implications for customers of Colorados newly legal recreational marijuana industry. In November 2012, Colorado and Washington state became the first U.S. states to legalize non-medical marijuana use (Washingtons law goes into effect later this year). Last August, the U.S. Justice Department announced that as long as those states implemented strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems regarding their newly legal marijuana industries it was deferring its right to challenge the new legalization laws, and would continue not to devote federal resources to prosecuting individuals whose conduct is limited to possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use on private property. Legalization advocates hailed those votes, and the feds choice not to crack down in response, as a potential tipping point for their cause; Drug Policy Alliance executive director Ethan Nadelmann predicted to Salon last month that Oregon and possibly other U.S. states will vote to legalize marijuana in 2014.
FULL story at link.
JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)But wouldn't it be illegal to fire someone for doing something legal on their own time? Is anyone being fired for drinking on their own time? No? Why, would it be laughed out of court?
This is discrimination of sorts, isn't it?
Julie
noamnety
(20,234 posts)Paula Deen's comments come to mind, as well as teachers posting photos to facebook of themselves partying, or people getting fired for being gay.
I don't think Colorado is one, but right to work states can fire someone for almost any reason at all, with very specific exclusions like racism.
mn9driver
(4,428 posts)Federal law requires it of transportation and law endorcement and probably other professions. The tests make no attempt to distinguish between being impaired on the job and off duty use.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)intaglio
(8,170 posts)After a night on the razzle most people will be intoxicated to some degree and, in the UK, to dismiss such workers as long as the workers have been informed beforehand. Personally I'm fine with that, I would not want to work in a warehouse with a partially intoxicated fork-lift truck driver or in a welding shop with a woozy welder.