Do l have to allow off-duty use of medical marijuana?
In other words, if a person has a disability recognized by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or state disability law and medical marijuana has been recommended to treat the disability, must an employer, as a form of reasonable accommodation, exempt the employee from mandatory drug testing or abstain from terminating him if he tests positive for marijuana? This is perhaps the toughest issue presented by medical marijuana statutes, including Colorado’s. Colorado courts have not addressed this specific issue, but decisions from other states with medical marijuana laws suggest the answer is no. In Barber v. Gonzales, a case heard by the Eastern District of Washington in 2005, the individual argued that as a disabled individual protected by the ADA, his use of medical marijuana under Washington’s Medical Marijuana Act prohibited law enforcement from prosecuting him under the federal Controlled Substances Act, which prohibits the use of marijuana. Without much analysis, the court dis
