If 80% of Americans support medical marijuana, why do we keep hearing stories like this one:
She's not the one who should be embarrassed by this. TeleTech is the second company this month to get ugly press attention for discriminating against patients. In the current political climate, only an idiot would want their business associated with this sort of reckless cruelty and prejudice.
Unfortunately, those enforcing such arbitrary policies are still hiding behind claims of conflicting laws and vague liability concerns. It might be totally incoherent, but it goes to show how federal intransigence continues to leave patients vulnerable to abuse despite improvements in enforcement policy. It's time for the White House to move beyond the argument that medical marijuana raids are a "poor use of resources," and directly acknowledge that medical use is a basic human right.
Even the worst drug warriors will be the first to insist that patients aren't arrested and jailed in the war on medical marijuana. Shouldn't firing patients from their jobs be considered comparably reprehensible?
Jane Roe has suffered from severe migraines for years… Jane tried every prescription drug imaginable but none gave her relief. She finally found the answer after receiving authorization for medical marijuana from a doctor. Not long after that, Jane was hired at a company called TeleTech. Her position involved answering customer service calls for Sprint at TeleTech's Bremerton office. Jane was up front about her situation with the company from the very start.
Roe: "I knew that I already had medical marijuana; I didn't want to have to hide it. So I went to the Human Resources Department and provided them with a copy, they said they did not want one. They told me to still go take the drug test."
Jane did as she was asked and then began her training program. On her tenth day, she was called out of the training. She was told her drug test had come back positive and she would have to leave immediately. Jane felt humiliated. [KUOW.org]
She's not the one who should be embarrassed by this. TeleTech is the second company this month to get ugly press attention for discriminating against patients. In the current political climate, only an idiot would want their business associated with this sort of reckless cruelty and prejudice.
Unfortunately, those enforcing such arbitrary policies are still hiding behind claims of conflicting laws and vague liability concerns. It might be totally incoherent, but it goes to show how federal intransigence continues to leave patients vulnerable to abuse despite improvements in enforcement policy. It's time for the White House to move beyond the argument that medical marijuana raids are a "poor use of resources," and directly acknowledge that medical use is a basic human right.
Even the worst drug warriors will be the first to insist that patients aren't arrested and jailed in the war on medical marijuana. Shouldn't firing patients from their jobs be considered comparably reprehensible?
Looking for the easiest way to join the anti-drug war movement? You've found it!
"Shouldn't firing patients
"Shouldn't firing patients from their jobs be considered comparably reprehensible?"
Yes! Absolutely. Do you have email addys for those two companies? Consumers and citizens should complain about these kinds of abuses, we can force those companies to change their ways or be boycotted out of business.
I'm pro-choice on EVERYTHING!
Sue Them for the Hell of It
It’s not clear the companies followed the proper procedure for dismissing their employees for drug use.
Employers are expected to give the employee the opportunity to receive drug treatment as an option to losing their job, especially if the company’s health insurance policy offers a drug treatment plan. Failure to offer this remedial option makes a company vulnerable to a wrongful termination lawsuit.
Drug issues involving employer/employee relations is a legal area where, with some effort, the drug laws can be made radioactive enough so that an employer won’t go near the laws in any but the most extreme circumstances. For instance, would a company have the same legal option to fire an employee who uses prescribed Marinol as opposed to medical marijuana? Would the company prefer to litigate this question in court? Probably not.
One sure way to limit employer harassment over personal privacy issues like drugs is to prohibit random drug testing. This forces the employer to judge the employee according to their work performance instead of their cultural affiliation as symbolized by their drug of choice. Several cities in California: Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Santa Monica, prohibit random drug testing by companies on their employees.
Giordano
damn right medical use of cannabis is a human right
I haven't heard it phrased quite so directly and bottom line before and I like it. Steal this rhetoric.
Also, someone should try to come up with very preliminary estimates of how much money our health care system could save if the medical uses of cannabis are fully exploited and researchers are able to fairly compete for funding. The health benefits, of not having to use big pharma's toxic side effect ridden products, and not polluting waterways with toxic waste from their production, and not being sent to the poorhouse by their cost, are even harder to estimate.
Blame the insurance companies on this one ...
First, being fired during a probationary period while waiting for drug testing results isn't illegal ... BUT,
This is just another instance of how the insurance companies control America. They are the ones behind many of these pre-employment and random testing programs, charging higher fees for corporate liability insurance, or even refusing to write policies if the companies don't drug test.
This is ironically counter-productive considering the results of various studies regarding pot's safety-related issues. Multiple studies have found that people who have recently smoked pot have fewer ER admissions for all reasons than completely straight people, and the effect is dose-dependent. The more pot smoked the less likely a trip to the hospital.
And now with the economy permanently screwed - the lost jobs aren't coming back because the wheelers and dealers who bought up the manufacturing base dismantled American industry and sold it all to China - the employers are taking full advantage by offering low wages while demanding people drug test for just about every job.
It's the same problems in various forms throughout our society, authoritarianism and plutocracy/corporatism. Pot is a symbol of their ability to control us. This is part of why they are pushing back crazily now, the momentum towards legalization in the past year has scared them.
"Even the worst drug
"Even the worst drug warriors will be the first to insist that patients aren't arrested and jailed in the war on medical marijuana. Shouldn't firing patients from their jobs be considered comparably reprehensible?"
I know an unfortunately large number of people who think ALL marijuana users should be jailed and dealers should be executed. Glad to hear you live amongst a more civilized bunch of drug warriors.
you can go to the department
you can go to the department of labor and file a case
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