Bill would protect medical pot users' jobs

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/ci_8326712

Oakland Tribune
February 21, 2008

Bill would protect medical pot users' jobs
By Josh Richman

A new Assembly bill with two Bay Area co-authors seeks to protect
medical-marijuana users' jobs.

AB 2279, introduced Wednesday, would prohibit employment discrimination
against those who use marijuana as medicine in compliance with state law
away from the workplace. It would leave intact already-existing
provisions barring consumption in the workplace, and would protect
employers from liability by carving out an exception for
safety-sensitive jobs.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, had vowed to introduce such a
bill last month after the state Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that an employer
can fire a worker solely because he or she uses medical marijuana
outside the workplace.

"AB 2279 is merely an affirmation of the intent of the voters and the
legislature that medical marijuana patients need not be unemployed to
benefit from their medicine," Leno said in a news release issued Thursday.

The bill is co-authored by Assemblywomen Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley; Patty
Berg, D-Eureka; and Lori Saldana, D-San Diego. It's sponsored by
Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access, a national nonprofit which had
argued for the plaintiff in the state Supreme Court case decided in January.

"Despite the ill-conceived ruling by the California Supreme Court, the
intent of state legislatures has been to recognize the civil rights of
patients and to offer them reasonable protections," ASA spokesman Kris
Hermes said Thursday.

ASA says companies that have fired medical-marijuana users, threatened
their jobs or denied them jobs include Costco, UPS, Foster Farms Dairy,
DirecTV, the San Joaquin Courier, Power Auto Group and several
construction companies, hospitals, and trade union employers.

Similar bills have been introduced in Oregon and Hawaii.