1. Workers Can Be Fired for Marijuana Use, Colorado Court Rules
New York Times June 2015
DENVER — Even in one of the country’s most marijuana-friendly states, smoking pot off the job and away
from work can still get an employee fired.
That was the unanimous conclusion of the Colorado Supreme Court on Monday, in a closely watched
workplace lawsuit involving a customer service worker who uses medical marijuana to help soothe the
painful spasms he has suffered since a car accident left him paralyzed. T he worker, Brandon Coats, was
fired from Dish Network in 2010 after testing positive for marijuana in a random drug test.
The court’s decision was a blow to marijuana advocates, who have consistently seen court rulings go
against them, with judges in Colorado and elsewhere saying that companies have the right to create their
own drug policies. The loss by Mr. Coats highlights the limits of marijuana legalization at a time when
more states are approving medical or recreational uses of a drug that is still o utlawed as a Schedule I
controlled substance by the federal government.
“The federal government has in many ways the last say,” said Sam Kamin, a law professor at the
University of Denver who studies legal issues swirling around marijuana’s growing place in society. “As
long as that federal prohibition is in place, the states can only do so much.”
Twenty-three states allow medical marijuana, and Colorado is one of four that have legalized the drug’s
recreational use for adults. But Colorado is now confronting a backlash from two neighboring states,
sheriffs, rural property owners and a hotel company who argue in separate lawsuits that Colorado’s
network of state-licensed marijuana retailers and dispensaries is illegal, bad for property values and public
safety, and should be dismantled.
In another backlash, dozens of cities in Colorado and Washington State have banned marijuana
dispensaries from their limits.
Despite those conflicts, the regulated marijuana industry has become a presence here. There are
marijuana-themed yoga classes, cooking seminars and gallery events, and the state is taking in millions
in tax dollars from marijuana sellers. Federal law enforcement officials have largely allowed states to
proceed with their efforts to regulate medical and recreational marijuana.
But the federal prohibitions on the drug have made it difficult for dispensaries and regulated growers to
get bank accounts or lines of credit, and have forced marijuana businesses to pay abnormally high tax
bills. Marijuana advocates said the court’s ruling on Monday highlighted the legal gray areas where
marijuana intersects with employment law and other matters, such as custody disputes and housing
cases.
Lawyers for Mr. Coats argued that his medical marijuana use should have been covered by a Colorado law
aimed largely at protecting smokers from being fired. It says that employers may not fire workers for
“any lawful activity” outside the workplace.
Mr. Coats, who said that marijuana had worked “like a miracle,” had a medical marijuana card from the
state, and said he smoked only at home, away from work, and that his use did not affect his job
performance answering calls from cable-service customers.
But though marijuana may be legally grown in basements here and sold in downt own Denver
dispensaries, the state’s high court ruled that the clash in state and federal laws meant that Mr. Coats’s
use was not “lawful.”
“Employees who engage in an activity such as medical marijuana use that is permitted by state law but
unlawful under federal law are not protected by the statute,” Justice Allison H. Eid wrote in the court’s 6-
to-0 decision.
The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling upheld two lower-court decisions. In a statement, Mr. Coats’s
lawyer, Michael Evans, said that the decision was “devastating,” but that it at least clarified the
boundaries of marijuana use for employees.
Lawyers said the ruling could have wide ripples in Colorado. Cathy Klein, a lawyer in the Denver area,
represents a nurse who was fired after testing positive for marijuana. Ms. Klein said that the state nursing
board has been trying to order her client into a drug treatment program, and that Monday’s decision
would reinforce societal images of marijuana users as low-level criminals.
“The fact that it is a crime under federal law, that part of the decision is going to be persuasive,” she said.

2. Colorado’s new cannabis laws make it a top spot for pot tourism
The Guardian. Oct. 2014
Cannabis tour operators are heading for Colorado where new dispensaries (shops), and weed-friendly
clubs and hotels are popping up to make the most of the relaxation of marijuana laws.
As the sun rises over the Rockies, a tour bus pulls up outside the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver and
deposits a new load of tourists. It’s not your usual busload, though. This group has come from Texas for a
weekend organised by Spiro, a luxury cannabis tour operator, and its package includes a visit to a spa,
dinner, a trip to a farm and a weed-infused cooking class. Some of them will buy and smoke, some are
just curious, but they’re all here for the pot.
Until now choices for pot tourism have been limited. There’s Amsterdam, of course, where tourists can
buy up to five grams and smoke in coffee shops, but this year in the US, since Washington state and
Colorado legalised personal recreational purchasing and consumption of marijuana, there’s been a rush to
open dispensaries and growing operations, particularly in Denver. Medicinal marijuana has been available
in Colorado since 2000, so many existing suppliers are investing in more plants, space, shops and staff.
There are, as yet, no Starbucks-style chains though; many of the dispensaries (selling everything from
ready-rolled joints to smoking paraphernalia) are small and independently owned.
Drawn by the mountains and the laid-back atmosphere, tourists arrive daily in Colorado from other US
states and, increasingly, from overseas. Buying cannabis is the easy part; smoking it is another story, as
Colorado also has tough anti-smoking laws. Whether in edible or smokeable form, marijuana use is
prohibited in public spaces, including streets and parks, and in places visible from public spaces (such as
your hotel balcony). You can smoke inside at clubs such as Studio A64 in Colorado Springs, and a new
wave of hotels allow smoking (of tobacco or weed) in 25% of the rooms.
Since the beginning of 2014, it is estimated that cannabis sales have brought Colorado $47m in
tax revenue, with an estimated third of those sales to customers from out of state. From resorts in
western Colorado, such as Aspen, to the university town of Boulder, new dispensaries are opening to take
advantage of those looking for a more-refined buying experience. They tend to look like luxury fashion
boutiques, with no tie-dye or Bob Marley shirts in sight. You’ll find ads for cannabis yoga, pot reading
groups, arts clubs and other social activities meant to help take some of the stigma out of smoking and
make it more communal. Edible products are becoming popular, with treats from chocolates to cockt ails
on sale – their serving sizes limited to 100mg (milligrams) of active ingredient THC per product.
From sea to shining sea, states are watching how the situation in Colorado develops – with, of course, an
eye on the tax dollars. It must only be a matter of time before you can book a marijuana tour of the
entire US – yoga and chocolate brownies included.
• My 420 Tours has packages from $1,295pp, including two nights’ accommodation. Spirotours has half-
day tours from $399pp

3. Marijuana legalization clashes with drug testing in the workplace
The Guardian April 2015
As some US states and municipalities relax restrictions on marijuana use, many employers find
themselves caught between old rules – like zero-tolerance policies – and new laws
At a Society for Human Resource Management conference in Washington DC last month, a session on
drug testing in the workplace was so heavily attended that organizers had to switch rooms to
accommodate the audience. Even then, it was standing room only. And the hour set aside for the talk
wasn’t enough: outside the hall, employment attorney James Reidy, the presenter, answered questions
for 40 minutes afterward.
It’s easy to see why interest in drug testing is growing. The number of workers who tested positive for
drug use had its first year-over-year increase in a decade. Meanwhile, across the US, states and
municipalities are relaxing restrictions on marijuana use. “It’s becoming of increasing interest [to
companies], mostly because of changing state legislation on medical and recreational marijuana use,”
said Kate Kennedy, a spokeswoman for the Society for Human Resource Management.
Opposing responses
The most recent figures from drug-testing company Quest Diagnostics show thatpositive results for
marijuana use in the workforce rose 6.2 % in 2013. This contributed to the first rise in positives for
overall drug testing since 2003. In the two states that legalized recreational marijuana use before the
report was issued, the increase was even more pronounced: in Washington, use was up by 23%, and rose
by 20% in Colorado.
Now that 23 states have legalized medicinal marijuana use, and four states and Washington DC have
legalized recreational use, companies are trying to decide between two extremes: tightening policies on
positive test results to keep users out of their workforces, or loosening them to avoid driving away
qualified employees.
Employers are also increasingly facing legal challenges from employees who say that state law allows
them to use marijuana away from work. Lawsuits involving marijuana laws and the workplace are
multiplying, but several have already been ruled in favor of employers. In cases involving an aluminum
company in Montana and a steel company in Oregon, courts have found that employers don’t nee d to
accommodate the medical marijuana needs of employees. Another case involving a Walmart in Michigan
also ruled in favor of the employer. And a quadriplegic worker for Dish Network in Colorado was fired after
a drug test resulted positive due to his use of medical marijuana. Plaintiff Brandon Coats has appealed the
case to the state’s Supreme Court.
At stake are potentially competing concerns. On one hand, there are worries about employee privacy and
morale; on the other, there are issues on workplace safety and productivity. The question is, can these
two sides be reconciled?
“It’s a changing arena,” said Barry Sample, director of science and technology at Quest Diagnostics. Many
regard Washington state and Colorado as harbingers of future trends in recreational marijuana use, he
said. But, he cautions, it is still too early to draw strong conclusions. “While these results are striking, I
take the long view,” he said. “I need to see more data.”
On-the-job impact
Sample isn’t the only one who sees the need for more research. Evren Esen, director of research for the
Society for Human Resource Management, said that her organization will soon be polling members from
states that have recently passed marijuana laws. Among other issues, their surveys will address questions
about productivity and absenteeism.
When recreational use became legal in Colorado last year, a survey by the Denver-based Mountain States
Employers Council reported that slightly more than one in five companies were going to make their dru g-
testing policies “more stringent”, with harsher consequences for positive drug tests.
This response isn’t surprising: the US Department of Labor estimates that drug and alcohol users drained
an estimated $82bn from businesses due to lost productivity in the year studied. Another recent survey,
published by theDepartment of Health and Human Services, showed that almost 10% of adults who are
employed full time use illicit drugs – a number that is increasing, likely driven by marijuana use.
Still, Reidy said, a drive to test more or toughen penalties for positive tests will doubtless bring up privacy
issues for many employees. “There’s the notion that ‘what I do on my own time is my own business,’” he
said. The issue is not only complicated by medical and recreational marijuana laws, he said, but by the
fact that testing only measures whether a person has recently used a drug; it doesn’t measure
impairment.

4. Another possible unintended consequence, Reidy said, is that as the workforce becomes increasingly
nomadic, employees may simply up and leave if they consider a workplace’s drug-testing policies to be
too strict. “This could fray the trust between employer and employee,” he said, and lead to a “brain drain”
in certain sectors.
Some companies are already worried about losing good workers, said Curtis Graves, spokesman for
Colorado’s employer council. “At first, they were freaked out by the law, but now they’ve seen they might
miss out on quality employees who happen to use marijuana recreationally on the weekends,” he said.
Different states also have different laws when it comes to the consequences for employees who test
positive for drugs. Maine, for example, prohibits companies from firing employees the first time they test
positive, and requires them to offer an opportunity to enter rehab.
At the end of Reidy’s talk about the changing landscape of drug testing last month, hundreds of human
resource officials left the conference room scratching their heads, he said. This is likely to continue. “[It’s]
a quickly evolving issue,” he said. “By this time next year, things will probably have changed again.”

5. Vermont Lawmakers Threaten To Reinstate Prohibition If Pot Isn't Legalized
The Hufftington Post, April 2015
Vermont may well become the next state to legalize marijuana, and two state lawmakers who support
legalization have a simple message for their colleagues: Give us what we want, or we'll take away your
booze.
A new bill filed earlier this month by state Reps. Jean O'Sullivan and Christopher Pearson would effectively
reinstate alcohol prohibition in Vermont. If passed, House Bill 502 would outlaw consumption of alcohol,
with penalties mirroring those currently in place for marijuana possession. Those found with small
amounts of alcohol would be subject to fines of up to $500, and anyone involved in the sale and
distribution stream could face up to 30 years in prison and $1 million in penalties.
O'Sullivan herself acknowledges that even she doesn't support the substance of the bill. Rather, "the
object was to basically embarrass leadership to say that we have [marijuana legalization bills] in front of
us, and they're going absolutely nowhere," she told The Huffington Post.
The lawmakers hope to give momentum to legalization in Vermont by raising awareness about the broad
scientific consensus that marijuana is the least dangerous recreational drug on the market. A study
published in February found that pot had the lowest risk of mortality when compared with nine other
commonly used drugs, including alcohol and tobacco.
"We're certainly not going to ban alcohol, but when you say you'll let a drug like that be legalized and
then you have a drug like marijuana that's far safer that's still banned, it's completely ironic," O'Sullivan
said.
Another bill, H.277, sponsored by Pearson and O'Sullivan and currently in committee, proposes the legal
sale and regulation of marijuana in Vermont. Senate Bill 95, which would also legalize the drug, was
introduced earlier this year in the legislature's upper chamber.
A Rand Corporation study released this year estimates that Vermonters spent between $125 to $225
million a year on marijuana in 2014. The report projects that tax revenue from a legal marijuana market
in the state could amount to between $20 million and $70 million annually.
O'Sullivan notes that taxing marijuana would go a long way to bridge the state'smassive budget deficit.
"Consider it a gauntlet thrown down," O'Sullivan said of H.277. "When you're looking at a $113 million
budget deficit, it looks really bloody attractive."
Beyond the financial incentives, evidence shows that there's something to the lawmakers' argument: Not
a single person has ever been killed from a marijuana overdose. By contrast, around 88,000 Americans
die each year due to excessive alcohol consumption, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.