cannabisnews.com: Bill To Limit Med Marijuana in Workplaces Fails





Bill To Limit Med Marijuana in Workplaces Fails
Posted by CN Staff on February 21, 2008 at 04:50:38 PT
By The Associated Press 
Source: Associated Press
Salem, Oregon -- A bill to limit the use of medical marijuana in the workplace has gone up in smoke.The bill would have expanded an employer's ability to prohibit the use of medical marijuana by workers in jobs deemed hazardous by the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration, including construction, law enforcement, forest services and some manufacturing.
Associated General Contractors, representing commercial construction companies, said the bill was needed not only to prevent accidents but to keep construction companies from losing federal contracts for failing to abide by federal workplace drug laws.The proposal, however, faced quick opposition from civil liberties organizations. It also failed to win backing from Associated Oregon Industries, an advocate for Oregon businesses that supported attempts to pass similar legislation in 2005 and 2007.J.L Wilson, an AOI lobbyist, said this year's bill was too narrow in focus."We feel this is a workplace issue that spans all sectors of employers, not just those in dangerous occupations," Wilson told the (Portland) Daily Journal of Commerce.Under Oregon's 1998 medical marijuana law, employers don't have to let patients with medical marijuana cards smoke it in the workplace. But the law left it unclear whether employers must accommodate workers who smoke medical marijuana off the job.In 2006, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled against a registered medical marijuana user who was fired from his job at a Columbia Forest Products plant after urine tests detected traces of the drug. But the court's decision avoided the central issue of marijuana use outside of the workplace.The two industry groups said they intend to work together next year for a more comprehensive medical marijuana bill.Drew Hagedorn, a lobbyist for the Oregon-Columbia chapter of the Associated General Contractors, said the group's lobbying efforts for 2009 will also include pushes for more transportation funding and a shorter statute of repose on construction defect lawsuits.The group is also working with legislators to fix a typo in House Bill 3242, which set new experience requirements for commercial construction licenses.As written, the bill requires Level 2 contractors to have at least eight years of experience and Level 1 contractors to have at least four years. Those requirements will be flip-flopped."The numbers were juxtaposed," Hagedorn said. "That was a concern for everyone because it serves as a barrier to entry-level contractors."Complete Title: Bill To Limit Medical Marijuana in Dangerous Workplaces FailsSource: Associated Press (Wire)Published: February 21, 2008Copyright: 2008 Associated Press CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by museman on February 21, 2008 at 10:20:26 PT
I forgot to add
That the very next thing that happened after we jinxed Mobile Oil, (they had a 'dry hole' packed up and left) and tried to get government action, was that they raided us.The unpublicized 'Bust of the Rainbow Farm.'
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Comment #3 posted by museman on February 21, 2008 at 10:14:26 PT
tha old ugly head
rearing again.In 1981 a group of us 'hippies' were fired from our roustabout jobs (we were undercover) at a nearby well-drilling operation, because I refused to operate an industrial spray painter without suitable breathing aparatus. They wanted us to do it with a paper medical mask. Bros were coming home totally whacked from breathing in toluline (the active ingredient in paint and glue that 'huffers' go for).We called Oregon agencies for job discrimination, safety on the job, as well as the EPA. We were told;A. Discrimination; "Don't you know hippies are lower than n__gers?"B. Safety; "If there is not at least 30% of toluline present in the (blood) system, there is nothing we can do."C. The EPA; This has got to be the worst of all. After we were fired, there was no longer any one actively watching that they didn't destroy our little eco-system. One day a couple of us went to see what they were doing, and we found that they were pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of their pink hydraulic oil (looked like auto transmission fluid) from their sump pond into our river!!!!!We immediately stopped that action and called the EPA.They assured us that the oil would be hauled away and dumped at an 'appropriate location.' We watched them pump all of it into tankers, and woudl have left it at that, but one intuitive brother decided to follow them, just to make sure.Oh, my god. They drove those tankers right up to the top of our watershed -our drinking water source, springs- and dumped it all.We called the EPA again, and they told us it was perfectly legal for them to dump it there, and there was nothing further to be done.There is an element in this state, racist, bigoted, white supremacists, (and quite often imbred) we affectionately refer to as 'red-necks' that have had much power because of the lumber industry that dominated Oregon economics since it first became a state. Directly related to the same original founders of cannabis prohibition; Hearst and the logging/lumber industry, these good 'ol boys kind of got outnumbered by the recent influx of middle class Californians in the last 2 decades, and the liberal attitudes usually found in great numbers only in say Portland, have spread to rural areas where us alternative folk have been struggling at odds since the 60's.They are still there, scheming, allies to the NewWorldOrder crowd, but if the majority actually has power, and in Oregon I think it does, they aren't as secure in their positions as they might think.Take a clue Oregon politicians.
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Comment #2 posted by charmed quark on February 21, 2008 at 09:20:18 PT
This is not about using on the job
But using off the job. The state law already said that businesses can prohibit medical users from using on the job.They want the right to fire you simply because you are a medical marijuana patient. They want to be able to fire you just for being registered, even if you don't have a positive urine test.Amazing.And the industry group was against the bill because if wasn't broad enough - it only covered workers in "dangerous" jobs. They want the ability to fire medical marijuana users in any job.
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Comment #1 posted by runruff on February 21, 2008 at 08:15:06 PT:
We should eleminate dangerous workplaces.
Just a thought. It may not be possible, really but reality is construction, law enforcement, forest services and some manufacturing, Are just a few of the places where people use cannabis on the job. 'have for years. Always will, medical or not. When I first returned home from the US Airforce, I got a job working for Western Electric filing drafts into these big bins. The job was so boring, me and the guys I worked with stayed stoned all day. We had a pile of drafts to file each day and we always finished. But my point here is there are a lot of boring mundane jobs out there and a lot of people pass the time high. Executives at W.E. had martini lunches and took their girlfriends to the local Holiday Inn for an hour ar two.
This was a big on going scandel because the young women and the execs were almost always married and not to each other.Ohmmmmm. Naughty, naughty!
 Just a though I thought I'd share. 
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