Since California first legalized medical marijuana in 1996, greater than half of US states have made related allowances for medical marijuana use. Nonetheless, marijuana use stays unlawful beneath federal legislation, which presents questions for employers and workers relating to medical marijuana utilization at work and off-duty. One explicit query is whether or not the usage of marijuana, together with medical marijuana whereas having a marijuana card, is protected within the office by the ADA?
What’s Affordable Lodging within the Office
Below Title I of the People with Disabilities Act (ADA) and as enforced by the Equal Employment Alternative Fee (EEOC), an affordable lodging is an adjustment to a job, office, or course of that allows somebody with a incapacity that limits their main life actions to have an equal alternative not solely to get a job but in addition to carry out their job as successfully as somebody with out a incapacity. The ADA requires affordable lodging in line with three (3) principal standards:
- Equal alternative within the software and hiring course of.
- Equal enablement to carry out the core duties of their job.
- Equal advantages and privileges of employment.
What are some examples of affordable lodging?
The ADA doesn’t require particular insurance policies or processes, as a substitute of requiring employers to make affordable lodging requested by workers. Examples of affordable lodging for folks with disabilities embody:
- Offering giant print and audio variations of software and coaching paperwork so that individuals with imaginative and prescient and listening to impairments can entry them.
- Holding interviews in areas which are accessible to folks with impaired mobility.
- Adjusting work scheduling to accommodate medical remedies.
- Offering time without work to obtain medical remedies.
Affordable Lodging Course of
There isn’t a particular formal course of for an affordable lodging request. Workers could make a request in plain English, that means that any indication that they want a change to their office or course of due to a medical situation may be thought-about a request for affordable lodging. Workers don’t have to make a written request for an affordable lodging, though employers can present kinds and processes for workers to comply with if they need. All affordable lodging requests should obtain a response, even when solely to direct them to the suitable particular person to deal with it.
Employers can’t discriminate or interact in retaliation towards job candidates or workers within the alternatives for development they supply primarily based on affordable lodging requests.
When an worker makes such a request, the employer should make clear their wants the place essential to make sure that the lodging they supply can be efficient. This may embody:
- Asking questions concerning the nature of their medical situation or incapacity to raised perceive their wants.
- Listening to ideas for affordable lodging from the worker.
- Researching potential lodging for situations and disabilities that the employer just isn’t conversant in.
Employers can ask an worker in the event that they want an affordable lodging for a identified incapacity with out first being prompted by the worker whether it is affordable to consider that they may. For instance, an employer might ask a deaf worker on a enterprise journey about any lodging they may want.
How Do Marijuana Legal guidelines Have an effect on the Office?
United States federal legislation, together with the federal Managed Substances Act, and likewise state legislation in lots of instances, doesn’t affirm the precise to make use of medical marijuana at work towards firm coverage as marijuana for any use is an unlawful substance. In these conditions, marijuana use, together with when certified people have marijuana playing cards, remains to be thought-about unlawful drug use.
Some states, nonetheless, reminiscent of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, solely permit employers to self-discipline folks for marijuana for medicinal use if it leads to their efficiency at work dropping under the accepted customary for his or her position.
Moreover, some states prohibit discrimination towards medical hashish customers, together with these with a medical marijuana card, by employers primarily based solely on their standing as a registered medical marijuana cardholder. In 5 (5) of these states, medical marijuana customers can’t be disciplined or terminated on account of failing a drug take a look at for marijuana.
Do Incapacity Legal guidelines Cowl Medical Marijuana Use?
The federal People with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act each exclude folks illegally utilizing medication from protection. Though a number of jurisdictions have legalized medical or leisure marijuana use, none require employers to allow the usage of marijuana, together with medical use, at work or on work time. Most additionally permit employers to take disciplinary motion towards somebody who’s impaired by marijuana at work, even when it was used legally whereas off-duty. In figuring out if an worker is impaired on account of marijuana, employers are often permitted to have an worker who seems to be impaired take and present a constructive drug take a look at.
Nonetheless, this isn’t as clear because it sounds. Hashish terpenes results are very different, and never all of them produce an intoxicating impact. In consequence, folks utilizing medical marijuana merchandise that don’t end in any impairment could possibly declare incapacity discrimination if they’re punished for doing so. It is a advanced authorized space, so it’s clever to speak to an skilled legislation legal professional earlier than taking motion.
What Authorized Protections Exist for Workers who Use Medical Marijuana?
Some jurisdictions have dominated that an worker’s off-duty medical marijuana use is protected by medical marijuana statutes, in addition to state legal guidelines prohibiting incapacity discrimination. These permit workers to say incapacity discrimination if their employer takes an adversarial motion primarily based on their authorized, off-duty use of medical marijuana.
There are limits to those lodging the place they work together with federal legislation. Employers that obtain federal grants, contracts, subsidies, or advantages, are required to ban the use and distribution of managed substances like marijuana at work.
In lots of states, this case is progressing in a constructive course for medical marijuana customers. For instance, Arizona lately struck down a statute prohibiting marijuana possession on school campuses, because it conflicted with state medical marijuana legislation. Protections towards discrimination are unlikely to require employers to allow marijuana use in safety-sensitive roles or the place drug testing is required to keep up federal commitments, for instance, the place employers are required to drug take a look at sure classes of workers reminiscent of car drivers, harmful machine operators, and medical professionals.
