Sacramento, CA: A medical marijuana employment rights bill, AB 2279, which would protect hundreds of thousands of medical marijuana patients in California from employment discrimination, passed the State Senate on August 20. The proposal had passed the State Assembly in May, and now heads to the Governor’s desk for his signature or veto.
Introduced in February by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and co-authored by Assembly members Patty Berg (D-Eureka), Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) and Lori Saldaña (D-San Diego), this proposal is designed to reverse a January 24th decision of the California Supreme Court in the case of Ross v. RagingWire, in which the court held that an employer may fire someone solely because they use medical marijuana outside the workplace.
The bill leaves intact existing state law prohibiting medical marijuana consumption at the workplace or during working hours and protects employers by carving out an exception for safety-sensitive positions.
“AB 2279 is not about being under the influence while at work. That’s against the law, and will remain so,” said Assemblyman Leno. “It’s about allowing patients who are able to work safely and who use their doctor-recommended medication in the privacy of their own home, not to be arbitrarily fired from their jobs. The voters who supported Proposition 215 did not intend for medical marijuana patients to be forced into unemployment in order to benefit from their medicine.”
If enacted, California would become the first of the 12 states that currently recognize the medical use of marijuana to protect authorized medical use patients from being fired based solely on a positive THC test.
California NORML director Dale Gieringer had this to say about the measure. “The legislature was right to approve banning employment discrimination of medical marijuana patients. Marijuana is safer than many prescription drugs that workers are allowed to use, and urine testing has never been FDA tested as either safe or effective in improving workplace safety and productivity.”
The governor has not indicated his intentions regarding the measure.
For more information, please contact California NORML director Dale Gieringer or call 415-563-5858