Opponents of medical marijuana in the business lobby are fighting hard in Oregon to hang up the “NO MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS NEED APPLY” sign in the storefront window. At issue is the portion of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act which states that employers need not make workplace accommodation for the use of medical marijuana. Business thought that meant “no potheads on the shop floor” and patients thought that meant “no using medicine at work”.
As we all know, the inactive metabolites of marijuana use remain detectable in one’s urine for days, weeks, even months, depending on use and body type. We also know that businesses have been coerced into maintaining “drug-free workplaces” and to do so, they test the urine of employees for the presence of inactive metabolites of marijuana. Thus we have the patient who medicates after work but is sober the next day at work. He would fail the drug test, but not be impaired in the slightest.
Business feels that having a drug-test-failing employee on the job is accommodation of medical marijuana, which they believe OMMA does not require of them. Patients feel that so long as they aren’t using or impaired on the job, the workplace is accommodating nothing but their dirty pee.
So to address the issue, rather than giving a pass to medical marijuana patients or scrapping urine testing in favor of proven technologies that actually detect impairment, business wants to write discrimination into the law so that no employer need accommodate any medical use of marijuana regardless of where that use may occur.
House Bill 2497 and Senate Bill 426 both allow an employer to fire or not hire a medical marijuana patient for simply possessing a medical marijuana card. Senate Bill 427 goes further by not only openly discriminating against patients, but also specifically defines inactive metabolites as proof of drug impairment (I understand the Senate also wants to define pi as equal to 3.15 exactly, but that don’t make it so, either). The bill also gives employers the maximum latitude in drug testing, so far as to even immunize employers from lawsuits over false positives. Most egregiously, the bill requires anyone who seeks to get a medical marijuana card to notify their employer first.
You can relax a bit. OCTA doesn’t exist anymore. Even so, I don’t understand how you posit this:
…then be so vocally opposed to a measure designed to do that very thing. OCTA was all about allowing people to grow and possess their own cannabis, tax free, permit free, and buy it in a liquor store if they wanted to, while denying it to minors.
Never mind, let’s not beat a dead horse. OCTA’s been pulled, so it’s pointless. Let’s go broader: do you support a measure to tax and regulate the sales of marijuana between adults? Do you believe the government can regulate how much marijuana a person a can grow and to whom they can sell it? Does government have a right to limit possession amounts?
I’m of two opinions on this. Morally, government has no say in the matter, any more so than it can dictate how many tomatoes I may grow, pick, or eat in a field, if it’s my field and it’s my own personal use.
Practically, if we’re ever going to stop having people being arrested for marijuana, the only feasible political solutions involve some measure of government control.
Definitely not OCTA! OCTA would only make real freedom less attainable. The legislature would still assert dominion over our very minds. That is an outrageous proposition. But, it is our current state of oppression. These guys (Big Money) do seem to have the minds of much of the population under their control. They have been researching how to manipulate people, masses of people, perhaps for centuries, but certainly for decades. Their techniques are very sophisticated now.
Here is a good motto for dealing with legislators:
Or perhaps better stated:
You have to go after legislators who sponsor this crap. To do this, you have to rally the masses of people to your cause. Take a look at the statistics you have about the number of Americans who have used marijuana. Then, compare that number to the number of people who are current members of NORML. What is the problem? Somebody at NORML should be looking at that. Sorry, I don’t have the stat’s myself, but I can’t imagine that the numbers are even within a factor of ten of each other. I think the best way to rally the support of the people would be to have a continuous educational campaign throughout the community. Slick art would probably hook attentions. It occurs to me that some events might be used to raise funding for further educational events. Education has to be a component of every message. If the people were to understand the benefits of responsible cannabis use, and also to realize the waste of taxpayer money and harm to the community that results from blanket prohibition, I believe that the people could be moved to insist on a change in the policy. Then, you would need to convince the people that the government has no legitimate dominion over the consciousness of the citizens, and that the government’s only legitimate role with regard to drugs is to regulate the use, probably by regulating access to the drugs, so that those who use drugs responsibly are allowed to do so, and those who have problems using drugs responsibly are denied access to the substances that they abuse. Even for people who have problems using drugs, I think it might be a good idea to allow them access under controlled circumstances. These controlled circumstances could allow appropriate use of the drug, and education which could nudge the user into acceptable behavior so that he or she might eventually be granted unrestricted access to the drug once again. With government acting within its proper role, the cost of drug related programs would be drastically reduced. The government need only concern itself with that small portion of the population which is exhibiting problematic (such as reckless, or violent) behavior. The number of such users could be minimized in a society in which the general population understands the effects of drugs, and knows how to use drugs responsibly. I believe that remedial education could further reduce the number of people who actually needed to be denied access to the drugs.
Unfortunately, Big Money realizes that an enlightened population of responsible drug users would probably not submit to their petty manipulations. That is why there is such opposition to the use of drugs. Can’t let them free their minds. Big Money would lose control.
I agree that society would change, but probably for the better. Our current course has brought us to, and perhaps just beyond, the brink of global disaster.
Well, perhaps I’ll start out slow, maybe by just making a few posts where there might be a discerning audience receptive to such ideas.
Who knows where that might lead?
-ED
Heres a response I got from a Oregon state Rep about what Russ is talking about here:
Scott-
Thanks for the email. Rep. Dembrow is opposing HB2497, and supporting
the rights of Medical Marijuana patients to work. He has not yet
decided whether to support Rep. Buckley’s bill, but I will pass your
thoughts along to him as he considers it.
Cheers,
Logan Gilles
Chief Policy Advisor
Rep. Michael Dembrow (HD45)
And the proper solution is…?
And you’re going to implement that how…?
Wahh, wahh. Well, that’s what you get when you capitulate to legislatures authorities to which they have no legitimate right.
While every citizen needs to raise their objections to these bills to their own legislators, there needs to be a concerted effort to remove the sponsors of these bills from office at the next election. Opposition needs to be visible and ongoing until they are removed from office.
I would like to think that the people of Oregon would not allow such laws to stand. But, the real problem is that OMMA was never the right solution. The implementation of such a poor law inhibits and delays the proper solution. That is why I am so strongly opposed to OCTA.
-ED
That is just wrong, what someone does in the privacy of there own home is there own damn buisness as long as it does not effect there work.
As a soon to be Oregon resident this sucks.
Would I be OK to work in Oregon if I go back to using only morphine for my pain? I’m not even supposed to be driving here.