Posted on 09/30/2014 6:19:02 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Pot may be legal in Colorado, but you can still be fired for using it.
Brandon Coats, a quadriplegic medical marijuana patient who was fired by the Dish Network after failing a drug test more than four years ago, says he still can't find steady work because employers are wary of his off-duty smoking.
In a case being closely watched around the country, Colorado's Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear arguments in Coats' case, which could have big implications for pot smokers in the first state to legalize recreational sales of the drug. The case highlights the clash between state laws that are increasingly accepting of marijuana use and employers' drug-free policies that won't tolerate it.
"Attitudes are changing toward marijuana. Laws are going to have to change, too," Coats told The Associated Press. "I'd like for this to enable people like me to find employment without being looked down upon."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Remember that when your on the operating table.
It is down to getting sued because he’ll sue when he decides he can fly off a roof or get sued because they fired him because he was high. The company is going to lose either way. This is just the first of such cases.
Not true, but continue with the BS propaganda. Rush said something along the lines of ignorance being the most expensive commodity in America today, and he's right, especially when it comes to the entirely ignorant, propaganda based, anti-MJ right. Not a one with any real experience or knowledge, sitting at their computers ginning up the ignorance while watching that "documentary", "Reefer Madness". Sad, really.
I used to be anti-drug war (never pro pot). But I now have seen what pot does to both kids and adults. Legalization has been a disaster even though it still nominally illegal here in Virginia.
But pot’s intoxicating chemical, THC, can stay in the system for weeks.
Not exactly,
they detect the non-psychoactive marijuana metabolite THC-COOH, which can linger in the body for days and weeks with no impairing effects. Because of THC-COOH’s unusually long elimination time, urine tests are more sensitive to marijuana than other commonly used drugs. According to a survey by Quest Diagnostics, 50% of all drug test positives are for marijuana.
Sig Heil
Even nominal illegality is not the same as legalization - a law on the books doesn't have to be enforced to affect incentives and motivations.
What might that be?
Yup, what's sauce for the goose ... if you can't be fired for after-hours legal tobacco use, you can't be fired for after-hours legal pot use (as long as you're not high on the job). I think employers should be free to fire for any damn reason they please, and suffer the economic consequences of irrational policies - but it sounds like some tobacco users successfully invented themselves a bogus "right" under Colorado law.
Best not mistake me for one of those. I happen to be an experienced user in favor of decriminalization, moderation, and if necessary, legal constraints for the sake of general civility and safety in the workplace. There may be a place for MJ use, but there are also places where it has a negative effect. People who do not know the difference will get a "2x4 upside the head" one way or the other.
DURING work, then I’d agree. AFTER work/etc., where the test still comes back positive, but the effects are gone??....
IE: Drink/two @ lunch vs. liquid lunch.
Some smoke is more equal than others but big govt. extorts its taxes on all. Hate the sins, love the taxes.
Let me explain it more clearly: before legalization in other states pot was illegal here and stigmatized. After legalization elsewhere, pot is illegal but people smoke openly and kids buy seeds on the internet to grow. The difference is that legalization elsewhere reduces the stigma and increases the availability and potency of seeds.
So laws in OTHER states deterred them but the laws of their OWN state don't? Frankly, I don't believe that.
Obviously a drunk can be the same, but it is less subtle due to alcohol smell and diuretic effects. Also the hangover and lousy digestion that does not affect pot smokers AFAIK is a personal deterrent to alcohol. Thus alcohol and drunkenness is a wider gap than pot and stoned.
It’s a simple rationalization: if pot is legal elsewhere then it should be legal here, therefore I should smoke it.
They already do have employees on pot, have for years.
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