Colorado Politics

Marijuana supporters to rally for a job fix at Colorado’s Capitol Wednesday

If you don’t think it’s fair for employers to deny jobs over off-duty marijuana use, then you’ll find like-minded folks at the Colorado Capitol Wednesday.

NORML’s Colorado Lobby Day is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the first floor in the north lobby. In Colorado a major industry has grown up around marijuana since voters passed Amendment 64 in 2012, legalizing recreational sales to join the medical marijuana industry in the state since voters passed Amendment 20 in 2000..

In 2015, however, the Supreme Court said employers could still screen for pot use, recreational or medical, before employment or during in the Coats v. Dish Network decision.

Colorado’s high court said employees could still be fired over marijuana use off the job, because it remains illegal in the eyes of the federal government. The case was specifically about medical marijuana, but it’s used as a defense for testing for recreational marijuana use, as well.

That rationale, however, is on shaky ground. As U.S>Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatens to bring down more federal authority over states that have legalized it, U.S. Sens. Cory Gardner and Michael Bennet of Colorado, along with other lawmakers, are examining states’ rights legislation for legal pot.

Pot users and suppliers on Wednesday will call for a legislative fix Wednesday, urging lawmaker to change the state law on unlawful prohibition of legal activities as a condition of employment.

“Countless Coloradans use marijuana legally as medicine or for fun, their right under the Constitution,” NORML said in a press advisory. “But employers still can use pre-employment and random drug tests to deny work to these law-abiding citizens. This is bad for business, discriminatory and unfair.”

The advocacy organization said Carol Setters of Predictive Safety in Centennial will demonstrate a testing system that determines if a person is high, not simply whether they’ve used pot recently.

“A drug-free and safe workplace does not legally require pre-employment or random drug testing,” Jordan Person, director of Denver NORML, said in a statement. “Impairment testing is a 21st century alternative for Colorado employers to outdated and ineffective 1980’s drug testing for marijuana.”

 
Brennan Linsley

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