Medical Marijuana User Disqualified from Unemployment Compensation Benefits

 

October 21, 2013

 

To date, twenty states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana and the trend is not braking anytime soon. In fact, this year alone lawmakers in thirty states either introduced or amended medical marijuana legislation. And although the U.S. Justice Department acknowledged as early as 2009 that focusing on disabled individuals complying with state law was a futile expenditure of federal resources, medical marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Consequently, this case raised a question we're all likely to see again and again: Whether an employee testing positive for medical-use marijuana may be disqualified from unemployment compensation benefits. This case is Beinor v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 262 P .3d 970 (2011).

 

Service Group, Inc. employed Jason Beinor to sweep Denver's 16th Street Mall with no less than a broom and dustpan. It had a zero-tolerance drug policy, which stated in relevant part that any employee would be terminated if he or she screened positive for illegal drugs in any drug test ordered by Service Group. Beinor, however, who suffered from severe headaches, held a registry identification card to obtain and use medical marijuana in accordance with Colorado Amendment 20. In February 2010, Beinor was discharged from Service Group for just that (even though Service Group acknowledged Beinor's use of medical marijuana was lawful and did not negatively interfere with his sweeping and panning duties). After his benefits were denied, Beinor filed this appeal.

 

Because his marijuana use was legal under Amendment 20, Beinor claimed he was not at fault for the separation and could not be disqualified from receiving unemployment compensation benefits. The court quickly noted that it was not deciding whether an employer's right to discharge an employee for using medical marijuana was limited by Amendment 20.^[1] Instead, it used marijuana's illegal status under federal law to subject Beinor to Service Group's drug policy and reach the issue of entitlement. In Colorado, an administrative panel is authorized to deny unemployment compensation benefits where a controlled substance not medically prescribed was present in an employee's system during work hours. Drawing a distinction between a hall pass and prescription, the court found that Amendment 20 merely excluded marijuana from criminal prosecution where, on the written documentation of a physician, it was used for a debilitating medical condition. Thus, Beinor's use of medical marijuana did not constitute use of a medically prescribed controlled substance under the statute providing for disqualification from unemployment benefits, and affirmed the Panel's order denying benefits.

 

Editor's Note: Since Beinor was decided in 2011, public and political support for legal medical marijuana has continued to escalate. The courts, however, remain seemingly immune from popular culture, as evidenced in Curry v. MillerCoors, Inc., No. 12-CV-02471, 2013 WL 4494307 (D. Colo) (upholding ruling that employee at fault under federal law for separation from employment, despite constitutional amendment allowing medical marijuana). Together, Beinor and Curry forecast the dysfunction between medical marijuana statutes (which mutate to reflect public opinion), and employment laws (which grow stale under the reluctance of the courts). The clashing question is no longer if these statutes will impact producers, employers, and employees but when and to what extent.