A Colo court rules

[crashhelmet]

I can't believe I'm the first person to question this. So if someone has chronic pain is prescribed marijuana and takes it exactly as directed and comes to work sober every day they shouldn't be allowed to work? even if it's an office job where they sit all day and aren't doing manual labour? so someone who's sick has to choose between working to pay for the US's atrocious health care bills and not working so they can take pain medication their doctor told them too?

Am I the only one who thinks that someone that smokes pot to deal with "chronic pain" can't make it through an 8 hour shift without getting high to deal with that chronic pain?

Chronic pain doesn't just turn itself off when you have to work. If it does, they're full of shit and exploiting the system to get stoned.

[Greenday]

Am I the only one who thinks that someone that smokes pot to deal with "chronic pain" can't make it through an 8 hour shift without getting high to deal with that chronic pain?

Chronic pain doesn't just turn itself off when you have to work. If it does, they're full of shit and exploiting the system to get stoned.

Well, that pretty much answers that for me.

[Andara Bledin]

Chronic pain is not the same thing as constant pain.

I have chronic sinusitis. Sometimes it's a problem, sometimes it isn't. It just happens, you know, chronically.

[Hyena Dandy]

Am I the only one who thinks that someone that smokes pot to deal with "chronic pain" can't make it through an 8 hour shift without getting high to deal with that chronic pain?

Yes. Because you don't know what "chronic" means. >_<

Edit: That was rude and inappropriate of me. I apologize.

[Nekojin]

... I'm amazed that nobody has made a "chronic pain" joke yet.

[wolfie]

... I'm amazed that nobody has made a "chronic pain" joke yet.

I'm not so surprised - the first reference to chronic pain was only about 12 hours before your post, and was in connection with Vicodin. The first reference to chronic pain in connection with Marijuana was roughly an hour before your post. I'm sure someone will make that joke around 4:20.

[Hyena Dandy]

I apologize for being inappropriate earlier, but it's true. That is not at all what chronic means.

Asthma is a chronic condition, but people with asthma are capable of breathing a lot of the time. People with chronic pain are not in physical pain 100% of the time. It just means that they are frequently in pain and it comes back quite often.

[Glados]

A former insiders input...

The company mentioned in the article does not use a blood or urine test. They use a cheek swab that can be administered and read in minutes at the work site.

Some very basic information.

I wanted to say more but it is after 4 AM and I am not the best writer to begin with. I will put together more coherent thoughts later.

[Andara Bledin]

From that site:

THC is present in the cannabis plant and a saliva drug test can show positive readings for up to 3 days after consumption.

So, again, the test is almost completely useless for determining impairment, which should be the only reason for administering such a test.

The only test that is completely fair is the blood test, which unfortunately needs to be administered pretty much immediately, and costs more.

Businesses would much rather catch a ton of otherwise innocent people in their dragnet than be required to act quickly only when necessary.

[HYHYBT]

People with chronic pain are not in physical pain 100% of the time. It just means that they are frequently in pain and it comes back quite often.

Just for the sake of completeness, to bring this back around:

If the medicine given for pain interferes with work, it can be reasonable to require that a person suffer through the pain without medication *while on the job.* Requiring them to suffer the rest of the time too is a very different matter.

Neither a chronic condition nor marijuana, but several years ago I had trouble with my back. The doctor gave me a prescription for a muscle relaxant, which did my back a world of good but also made me a bit loopy. After the first day when I didn't know better, I took it only once I'd gotten home. At work, I still hurt, because I could neither do my job well nor even safely get to it while on the medicine, but why should I have suffered at home as well? It's essentially what's being demanding of medical marijuana users, only their condition tends to be more permanent.

[Panacea]

Except that it's not illegal.

Actually, it is quite illegal. It is a Schedule I Controlled Substance with no recognized medical use . . . or so says the DEA. It doesn't matter what state law says, if the Feds catch you with it you are going to jail.

That the laws are conflicting does not suddenly give possession of pot a stamp of legal approval. It sucks, and while I believe pot has legit medical uses, is no worse than alcohol, and should be legal the fact of the matter is it is still not a legal substance.

Also, the whole "if you have it in your system, so you were impaired at some point" line of thinking is kind of bullshit. If that's the way things are, then everybody who ever orders a drink at the corner bar should be fired for "being impaired at some point." After all, alcohol stays in your blood far longer than marijuana, plus it causes greater impairment.

Some employers will random test for alcohol, and if they find it in your system when they test, they can and will fire you. It doesn't matter if it is a legal product; the thinking is because alcohol metabolizes so quickly that if you are positive when you are tested, then you must be drinking on the job and that is verboten.

I'm not making this up and I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm sayng that's the reality of drug testing policies.

Am I the only one who thinks that someone that smokes pot to deal with "chronic pain" can't make it through an 8 hour shift without getting high to deal with that chronic pain?

Chronic pain doesn't just turn itself off when you have to work. If it does, they're full of shit and exploiting the system to get stoned.

I think I need to define what chronic pain really means. As someone else pointed out, chronic is not the same thing as constant. Chronic pain means the person has frequent pain from the same source on an ongoing basis.

For example, I suffer from chronic back and neck pain as a result of repeated work related injuries and several motor vehicle collisions. I also suffer from chronic migraines. I have good days and bad days. When I have a good day, I have no pain at all in my neck or back, and go about my business as usual. When I have a bad day, it's all I can do to climb the stairs, or do any kind of heavy lifting. I fatigue easily.

I also don't have a headache every day. When I get one, though, if I don't deal with it right away I will be in bed for days. I've had migraines that lasted over 2 weeks. Right now, I get 3-4 migraines a month. Back in 2006, I was getting migraines 3-4 times a week. I still get them a day before a major weather system moves through the area, often accompanied by generalized musculoskeletal pain. I'm in that pain right now . . . it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow.

Constant pain is a fact of life for some people, often with an identifiable cause. For example, a friend of mine with compressed nerves in her back suffers from near constant pain that no medication will touch.

I take Motrin at least once a day on most days, sometimes more. I also take other pain medications on an occasional basis. I can take the Motrin every 8 hours, but sometimes will be good for 24 hours or more. So I only take it when I need it. I can see the same thing with pot; in fact, I have seen it with another close friend who suffers from horrible fibromyalgia. She uses both Marinol (the legal form of THC in pill form) and uses pot in a vaporizer when the Marinol isn't enough for her pain. She dislikes taking medications, so she only takes the Marinol when she's really hurting, usually at night. The pot she uses even more rarely; she bought some last summer and still hasn't used it all.

When people need pain medication, they do need it. Right now, I'm not allowed to take any NSAIDS because I'm getting ready to have foot surgery and my doctor doesn't want me to have any anti inflammatories on board (the purpose of the surgery is to stimulate the inflammatory response in my foot in order to encourage it to heal). I haven't had any NSAIDS since Wednesday, and I'm in horrible pain right now. Tylenol isn't doing the job. I'm going to have to go to the doctor on Monday to try and find an alternate pain med that isn't a narcotic and isn't an NSAID. There aren't a lot of options for me.

From that site:

So, again, the test is almost completely useless for determining impairment, which should be the only reason for administering such a test.

Businesses would much rather catch a ton of otherwise innocent people in their dragnet than be required to act quickly only when necessary.

Not really. Businesses don't want to catch impairment. They want to catch drug USE. The medical literature on the subject already shows that chronic drug use impairs worker productivity, and they want to avoid that by getting rid of employees who use drugs (and use and abuse are not the same thing, but they don't care).

To avoid catching the innocent, most businesses only test employees if a manager thinks their job performance is suffering, and their behavior shows signs of drug or alcohol use. The businesses that use random tests are typically those that involve dangerous machinery, or in which people can get hurt if the worker is impaired . . . for example, my own profession of nursing.

I guess I've been lucky. In the 20 years or so since random drug tests became common in hospitals, I've never been asked to take one. Only the pre-employment drug tests.

[Andara Bledin]

To avoid catching the innocent, most businesses only test employees if a manager thinks their job performance is suffering, and their behavior shows signs of drug or alcohol use. The businesses that use random tests are typically those that involve dangerous machinery, or in which people can get hurt if the worker is impaired . . . for example, my own profession of nursing.

Except that what you've said is exactly everything that didn't happen in this case.

He wasn't tested because he was acting impaired. The employer actually stated that they had no reason to believe he'd ever been impaired.

And he didn't work around any dangerous machinery, unless you include office chairs and phone cords.

And he didn't work in a job where he could hurt others, unless you count cutting off someone's satellite TV service as dangerous.

In fact, unless somebody at the company wanted an excuse to fire him, I'm really not sure what purpose testing him could possibly have served.

[Duelist925]

Except that what you've said is exactly everything that didn't happen in this case.

He wasn't tested because he was acting impaired. The employer actually stated that they had no reason to believe he'd ever been impaired.

And he didn't work around any dangerous machinery, unless you include office chairs and phone cords.

And he didn't work in a job where he could hurt others, unless you count cutting off someone's satellite TV service as dangerous.

In fact, unless somebody at the company wanted an excuse to fire him, I'm really not sure what purpose testing him could possibly have served.

I've bolded a portion of this for emphasis.

The employer. Had no reason. To think he was impaired.

What reason, then, did they have to administer the test?

As Andara pointed out--unless they wanted an excuse to fire him, there was no reason to administer the test.

[lordlundar]

Funny, I didn't know the company or the courts were required to listen to a random stranger from the internet.

Look, the employee signed a workplace agreement that had a stipulation that drug tests can be administered at any point and a positive result would result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment. It's standard issue for employment agreements.

Now the state law only stipulates that people cannot be arrested for use of marijuana by local or state police. It does not grant them protected status from civil actions which this was and the courts reflect this.

Be offended all you want, but that doesn't mean that what happened was wrong. There's no difference if a person passed a standard sobriety test but a breathalyzer indicated he had alcohol in the system and was fired as a result.

[Jaden]

Be offended all you want, but that doesn't mean that what happened was wrong. There's no difference if a person passed a standard sobriety test but a breathalyzer indicated he had alcohol in the system and was fired as a result.

Well, except there is, because you couldn't be prescribed alcohol for pain by a doctor. As for it being "wrong" it depends on what viewpoint you're using. Legally, I think you're right. What the company did is within the bounds of the current law regarding marijuana usage. However, morally, I certainly think it was wrong. He had a doctor's prescription for marijuana. Of course he had it in his system. Given those extraneous circumstances, I don't think they should have fired him so long as they had some agreement that he wouldn't use it at work, or soon enough before it that it would impair his performance.