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Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoes medical marijuana bill

Bob Egelko

San Francisco Chronicle

Wednesday 01 Oct 2008

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill sponsored by medical marijuana advocates that would have protected most employees from being fired for testing positive for pot that they used outside the workplace with their doctor's approval.

The measure, AB2279 by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, would have overturned a state Supreme Court ruling in January that allowed employers to punish workers for using medical marijuana that was legalized by a state ballot measure in 1996. Under Leno's measure, the only workers who could have been fired for using medical marijuana would have been those in safety-related or law-enforcement jobs.

In its 5-2 ruling, the Supreme Court said the initiative, Proposition 215, exempted medical marijuana patients and their caregivers from state prosecution, but wasn't intended to limit an employer's authority to fire workers for violating federal drug laws.

Schwarzenegger used the same rationale in his veto message Tuesday.

"I am concerned with interference in employment decisions as they relate to marijuana use," the governor wrote. "Employment protection was not a goal of the initiative as passed by voters in 1996."

Medical marijuana supporters disagreed.

"The intent of 215 was to treat marijuana like other legal pharmaceutical drugs," said Dale Gieringer, a co-author of the ballot measure and California coordinator of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Leno said he wasn't surprised by the veto in light of the state Chamber of Commerce's opposition to his bill. He said the court majority, and the governor, apparently presumed that "the voters who supported Prop. 215 in 1996 intended that only those medical marijuana patients who are unemployed could make use of (the law)."

The court ruling upheld a Sacramento County company's firing of a computer technician who tested positive for marijuana. The employee, Gary Ross, had a doctor's note to use the drug for pain caused by back spasms. He said he had never used marijuana at work or been impaired by its effects on the job.

But the court said neither Prop. 215 nor California's disability discrimination law requires employers to allow workers to use drugs banned by federal law. Congress has classified marijuana among the most dangerous drugs and does not recognize any legitimate use.

Leno's bill passed both houses on bare-majority, party-line votes. It would have prohibited employers from firing or discriminating against employees whose marijuana use has been approved by their doctors, as long as they did not take the drug at the workplace or during work hours.

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com

This article appeared on page A - 15 of the San Francisco Chronicle

 

 

 

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