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Minutes before a Senate committee hearing began last week on the long-awaited legislation remaking the medicinal marijuana program, the language protecting patients from getting fired got a major makeover that is likely to disappoint employees.

An earlier version offered patients broad workplace protections — so broad that they would have violated federal law, said Michael Wallace, vice president for government affairs for the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

“Employers need to have the ability to have drug-free workplace policies and the ability to enforce them,” Wallace said.

The draft of the bill released on Nov. 21 said registered patients would be shielded from losing their jobs “unless an employer establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that the lawful use of medical cannabis has impaired the employee’s ability to perform the employee’s job responsibilities.”

Wallace said he had to object.

It will be easier to get medical marijuana in N.J. under bill that got key approval today

“We felt this conflicted with another provision in that section, which says that nothing in this section would require an employer to break federal law,” he said.

Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, the prime sponsor of the bill, said he agreed the association had a case. Federal law does not allow workers to take medication that may impair their ability to do their jobs, he said.

“Their concern was, what options do businesses have if someone is using medical marijuana and it impairs their ability to do their job? They raised an excellent point,” Vitale said.

Under the revised bill, (S10) prevents an employer from firing a worker for just being registered with the state program.

But the protection ends there.

According to the amendment:

“If an employer has a drug testing policy and an employee or job applicant tests positive for cannabis, the employer shall offer the employee or job applicant an opportunity to present a legitimate medical explanation for the positive test result, and shall provide written notice of the right to explain to the employee or job applicant.”

“Within three working days … the employee or job applicant may submit information to the employer to explain the positive test result, or may request a confirmatory retest of the original sample at the employee’s or job applicant’s own expense,” the amendment said.

“As part of an employee’s or job applicant’s explanation for the positive test result, the employee or job applicant may present an authorization for medical cannabis issued by a health care practitioner, a registry identification card, or both.”

But the amendment also says the expanded medical marijuana law cannot require an employer “to commit any act that would cause the employer to be in violation of federal law, that would result in a loss of a licensing-related benefit pursuant to federal law, or that would result in the loss of a federal contract or federal funding.”

Vitale said he understands how thorny an issue this is for patients, who could test positive weeks after consuming cannabis. The chemical compounds linger in the body for up to a month.

But out of legal necessity, Vitale said, “this errs on the side of caution” on workplace safety.

No state where cannabis is legal offer blanket employee protection from a positive drug test, said Attorney Charles X. Gormally from the law office of Brach Eichler in Roseland. The problem is the science, he said. The screening test is “inexact" and it’s used as a ban, despite the fact that people who test positive may not be intoxicated at work.

“This is something everyone is going to grappling with as cannabis use becomes more mainstream," Gormally said. “We are going to have to be patient. And the real key here, as the acceptance grow, it has to be met with a tremendous amount of education,” he said.

This report first appeared in NJ Cannabis Insider.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.