EbelEyes
02-08-2007, 06:18 AM
OregonLive.com: Everything Oregon (http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-18/117090175321420.xml&storylist=orlocal)
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2/7/2007, 6:19 p.m. PT
By AARON CLARK
The Associated Press
SALEM, Ore. (AP) â?? Employees who legally use marijuana under Oregon's voter-passed medical cannabis laws could be fired for flunking a drug test under a proposed Senate bill under committee consideration Wednesday.
Backers say the law would provide clarity on an issue surfacing in the workplace with increasing frequency. The bill would not just allow employers to remove workers if they are found to be impaired or consuming marijuana on the job, but if they test positive for using the substance outside of the workplace.
Opponents of the bill say it unfairly punishes medical marijuana users working in Oregon. They say workers can have traces of the drug in their system a month after use, and impairment can also come from a host of other doctor-prescribed and over-the-counter medications.
Lawmakers came down on both sides of the issue.
"More years ago and more pounds ago than I want to count, I spent 20 years as a professional, commercial helicopter pilot," said Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, who testified in support of the bill. "It is a zero-tolerance for drugs industry ... to assure a safe operation in the kind of very dangerous work that we were doing."
But Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, who testified before the committee, said that employers should look for obvious signs of impairment, rather than drug tests, to pinpoint whether an employee's ability to carry out their job is truly affected.
J.L. Wilson, Oregon director of the National Federation of Independent Business, said the law was critical for employers to avoid lawsuits.
"There's a whole host of plaintiff's attorneys looking for business and this is another avenue for them if you have impaired workers," said Wilson.
Others said the bill would fail to weed out employees that might be impaired by other doctor-prescribed or over-the-counter drugs, like those that contain codeine, amphetamines or morphine.
"This bill doesn't make us any safer," said Andrea Meyer of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. "It presumes that everyone who is using medical marijuana is impaired while at the same time individuals using other medications are not."
Lorenzo Gonzales, a 43-year-old machinist, said he was fired last month from his job with Forest Grove-based Merix, after traces of cannabis showed up in his mandatory drug test. The registered medical marijuana user said he takes cannabis for chronic pain due to several motorcycle accidents but that he only used the drug at night and it never impaired his ability in the workplace.
"The job I did was extremely complex and there's no way I could use my medication and think straight," Gonzales said.
But whether the high-tech manufacturing company had the outright authority to fire Gonzales, one of Oregon's 12,000 legally registered medical marijuana users, is a tricky question.
The Senate bill comes more than a year after the Oregon Supreme Court ruled against millwright Robert Washburn, a registered medical marijuana user who was fired from his job at a Columbia Forest Products plant after urine tests showed traces of the drug.
But the court's decision skirted the issue of marijuana use in the workplace and proponents of the legislation said lawmakers need to weigh in.
"The court cases that have come forward have not answered that question," said Jessica Adamson, government affairs manager at Oregon's branch of Associated General Contractors.
"We all believed we were talking about folks in the last three to six months of their life," Adamson said of the voter-approved medical marijuana law. "Not the kind of folks who would get it for back pain and show up on a construction site."
_________
2/7/2007, 6:19 p.m. PT
By AARON CLARK
The Associated Press
SALEM, Ore. (AP) â?? Employees who legally use marijuana under Oregon's voter-passed medical cannabis laws could be fired for flunking a drug test under a proposed Senate bill under committee consideration Wednesday.
Backers say the law would provide clarity on an issue surfacing in the workplace with increasing frequency. The bill would not just allow employers to remove workers if they are found to be impaired or consuming marijuana on the job, but if they test positive for using the substance outside of the workplace.
Opponents of the bill say it unfairly punishes medical marijuana users working in Oregon. They say workers can have traces of the drug in their system a month after use, and impairment can also come from a host of other doctor-prescribed and over-the-counter medications.
Lawmakers came down on both sides of the issue.
"More years ago and more pounds ago than I want to count, I spent 20 years as a professional, commercial helicopter pilot," said Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, who testified in support of the bill. "It is a zero-tolerance for drugs industry ... to assure a safe operation in the kind of very dangerous work that we were doing."
But Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, who testified before the committee, said that employers should look for obvious signs of impairment, rather than drug tests, to pinpoint whether an employee's ability to carry out their job is truly affected.
J.L. Wilson, Oregon director of the National Federation of Independent Business, said the law was critical for employers to avoid lawsuits.
"There's a whole host of plaintiff's attorneys looking for business and this is another avenue for them if you have impaired workers," said Wilson.
Others said the bill would fail to weed out employees that might be impaired by other doctor-prescribed or over-the-counter drugs, like those that contain codeine, amphetamines or morphine.
"This bill doesn't make us any safer," said Andrea Meyer of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. "It presumes that everyone who is using medical marijuana is impaired while at the same time individuals using other medications are not."
Lorenzo Gonzales, a 43-year-old machinist, said he was fired last month from his job with Forest Grove-based Merix, after traces of cannabis showed up in his mandatory drug test. The registered medical marijuana user said he takes cannabis for chronic pain due to several motorcycle accidents but that he only used the drug at night and it never impaired his ability in the workplace.
"The job I did was extremely complex and there's no way I could use my medication and think straight," Gonzales said.
But whether the high-tech manufacturing company had the outright authority to fire Gonzales, one of Oregon's 12,000 legally registered medical marijuana users, is a tricky question.
The Senate bill comes more than a year after the Oregon Supreme Court ruled against millwright Robert Washburn, a registered medical marijuana user who was fired from his job at a Columbia Forest Products plant after urine tests showed traces of the drug.
But the court's decision skirted the issue of marijuana use in the workplace and proponents of the legislation said lawmakers need to weigh in.
"The court cases that have come forward have not answered that question," said Jessica Adamson, government affairs manager at Oregon's branch of Associated General Contractors.
"We all believed we were talking about folks in the last three to six months of their life," Adamson said of the voter-approved medical marijuana law. "Not the kind of folks who would get it for back pain and show up on a construction site."