​Can medical marijuana patients be fired from their jobs for legally using cannabis with a doctor’s authorization? That’s the question before the Washington Supreme Court, which heard arguments Tuesday from attorneys in the case of a medical marijuana patient fired by a telemarketing firm for failing a drug test in 2006.

Kitsap Sun. Voters in 1998 would be “flabbergasted” to hear someone could be fired for legally using medical marijuana away from work, in this case to alleviate migraine headaches, argued Michael Subit, attorney for the woman called “Jane Roe” in court proceedings to protect her identity, reports Josh Farley at the





“The Legislature understood (voters) were giving broad permission” to use marijuana medicinally, argued Subit, “…and that’s why they [legal medical marijuana patients]can’t be fired.”

But James Shore, attorney representing Teletech, claimed the law passed by voters provides only a defense in court to patients who have a doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana. Shore said Washington’s medical cannabis law does not offer employment protection.

“An employer could permit it in the workplace if they want to,” Shore said of medical marijuana. “But they don’t have to.”

Shore read to the justices a section of the medical marijuana law that says it doesn’t accommodate medical marijuana use “in any place of employment.”