Calif. Court to Hear Marijuana Case

In reference to companies being found liable:

Treat smoking pot on the job like drinking on the job. DON'T DO IT or get fired. And if they have a valid medical reason to smoke it, don't put them in a position where they could cause an accident. If their job requires they drive etc, then fire them and hire someone who can do the job. But if they can do their job on Vicodin/Oxycontin safely, they can do their job on Marijuana.

Ask yourself this.. if the production of Marijuana could be controlled by big Pharma don't you think that it would be legally available by percription?

Reaper6971: Consider that a urinalysis can not tell whether or not an employee is high on marijuana, only whether they have smoked it. Even then, the test is not accurate at guessing how long ago they last used marijuana; the range varies from one day to one month with no positive way of identification other than binary "Yes/No".

Common sense can tell you whether an employee is high at work, particularly smell and red eyes, etc. but this article is about people getting discriminated against for something their state or local law says is okay vs. the federal law. Essentially this isn't about whether people can use medicinal marijuana, it is an issue of states' rights to govern themselves, which is a very old battle...

I do not understand why the federal government has marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug when it is considered a weed by most people. And, if a qualified medical doctor told someone to smoke it, then, I do not see where a company can fire that individual for following doctor's orders. Most companies will allow employees to work even when they are taking narcotics while working so I do not see where marijuana is any different.

I know that I told my ophthalmologist one time that if the pressure in my eyes wouldn't come down, then I would consider finding and smoking marijuana since it has a proven track record in lowing pressure in glaucoma. The same hold true if I should ever need chemotherapy. Marijuana again has a proven track record in lessening or eliminating nausea & vomiting due to chemotherapy. The federal government needs to wake up and take notice even if it isn't in their favor.

I don't know what the law enforcement people would say about someone driving while taking prescription pain medication that does not cause impairment and especially after they have been on it for a while and have built up a tolerance.

Isn't marijuana illegal at the state level, not the federal level? I'm pretty sure all the feds do is take away state funding if they don't enforce the law. What does it being illegal federally have anything to do with whether they can hire him?

"Arbitrate disputes between the states" No where does the US constitution give the federal government the right to:
1. regulate hiring by a private company (they have the right not to grant a security clearance but NO right to control hiring.
2. regulate or arrest a person for having a chemical metabolite inside their body.
Damn Democrats want to control everyone!
Republicans use military force on foreign countries.
Democrats use military force on US citizens.
(Waco, integration, Cuban child in Florida, an on and on)

Great post SDmike, and others.

1. Companies should have the right to fire people over ANYTHING.
2. The Constitution gives NO right to feds to regulate ANY drug (in fact 90%$ of what the fed gov does is illegal).

I wish people would understand the importance of state sovereignty, and of a state's right and duty to disobey the fed gov when the fed gov acts unconstitutionally.

One of the few areas in which I find myself praising Microsoft is their refusal to join the Police State intrusion into their employees private lives. (Largely, no doubt, because they knew that about 50% of their most productive workers would test positive)

Given that they have vast federal contracts themselves, I've never understood why the rest of the commercial sector hasn't shown the same courage. But that, I suppose, is one of the benefits of being a near monopoly.

Mind you if you examine the list of companies prepared to resist the drug warriors [ http://snipurl.com/1tuxo ] we do see a disproportionate number of IT specialists amongst them. What does that tell us?

I'm angry from the stand point of my freedom of choice being usurped by my government. Marijuana should be regulated, sold and taxed like other drugs such as alcohol and nicotine one of which is far more debilitating and the other more dangerous to health and both are more habit forming or addictive. It certainly should not be considered in the same class as heroin and cocaine.
Unless a person is intoxicated while performing duties at work, what a person does on his own time, or in his own home, should be his own business. As it is, if I have a couple of puffs along with my cup of tea on Sunday morning when I watch the news and read the newspaper, it could have a more detrimental effect on my life than if I went out, got drunk and slugged a cop!
I occasionally have a beer, Irish whiskey in that tea I mentioned earlier, wine with dinner and sometimes a cigarette after. All the above mentioned comforts are taken in moderation, and I don't need a bunch of morons in Washington involving themselves in the life of a responsible hardworking American.