Fired for Medical Marijuana?

Q. Does Colorado law allow employers to fire workers because they have medical marijuana licenses?

A. The Colorado Constitution allows qualified patients to have access to marijuana for medical purposes. In 2000, Colorado voters approved Amendment 20 which allows patients suffering from cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS, severe pain, and other serious debilitating conditions to use marijuana to treat their illnesses.

A federal anti-discrimination law, the Americans With Disabilities Act, prohibits covered employers from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities. At the same time, Colorado statutes generally prohibit employers from firing workers for engaging in legal off-duty conduct and from discriminating against workers with disabilities without attempting to reasonably accommodate them. Civil rights lawyers will be litigating the scope of the protections offered to medical marijuana patients and will be arguing that these laws provide protections, despite the federal ban on marijuana generally. At the same time, they will argue that the Colorado Constitutional protections should be honored and that the federal Controlled Substances Act violates the States' rights to determine this issue for themselves.

Colorado voters have expressed a strong public policy protecting the rights of medical marijuana patients, so fired workers may also have claims for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy. The federal drug law states that possession of marijuana is illegal under that law, however there is a serious debate as to its relevance to the discussion of employment rights, when employers have independent duties to comply with other more specific federal and state anti-discrimination laws that apply to them directly.

If you have been fired for having a medical marijuana card, you should seek legal counsel, since there are many laws that are implicated, and the analysis can be quite complex. Several factors will need to be considered to determine whether you might have valid legal claims. There are deadlines to file certain claims, so the earlier you seek legal counsel, the better.

Do you think medical marijuana patients should be forced to choose between their medical treatments and their jobs? What about patients taking other kinds of pain medications? Should the protections be the same?