On June 26, Oklahomans will go to the polls to decide the fate of State Question 788. If enacted, the measure would establish the state's first regulated and taxed medical-marijuana industry.

Such a momentous reform would inevitably have ancillary effects in other areas of law. In particular, some have expressed concern about the impact medical-marijuana reform might have on Oklahoma's employers.

Some analysts have cautioned that SQ 788 would dramatically upset current employment practices in the state and interfere with the ability of employers to maintain drug-free-workplace policies. To be sure, medical-marijuana reform could change the way many employers interact with those employees licensed by the state to use medical marijuana.

A close reading of SQ 788's proposed statutory language, and attention to the treatment similar laws have received in the increasing majority of states to have enacted them, however, suggest both that medical-marijuana reform would create relatively modest obligations for Oklahoma businesses and that responsible employers are already familiar with those obligations. In short, SQ 788 probably would not impose impossible burdens on Oklahoma's employers or eliminate drug-free workplaces.