Medical Marijuana

Attention New Jersey employers: you may not finish employees for failing a drug examination due to their medical marijuana use. On March ten, 2020, the New Jersey Supreme Courtroom decided that medical marijuana patients in New Bailiwick of jersey are protected by the New Bailiwick of jersey Law Against Discrimination ( NJLAD ), which means if an employee is terminated from his or her job based upon his or her proper medical use of marijuana, that employee may bring a disability discrimination claim under the NJLAD against the employer.

In the Supreme Court decision Wild v. Carriage Funeral Holdings Inc . , the Court held that employers are prohibited from terminating employees based solely upon their medical marijuana use.  The Courtroom likewise held that employers may exist required to conform an employee'south apply of medical marijuana when it is consumed at domicile after work hours.  As with other disabilities covered under the NJLAD, the rights of those employees are protected under the law and therefore the employer has a duty to brand accommodations that are reasonable and appropriate under the circumstances.

If an employee or job applicant tests positive for cannabis in a drug test, the employer must be careful to provide the employee or job applicant with time to review the results and provide an explanation.  The employer should provide this observe in writing and include a notice of the employee's right to provide a legitimate explanation for the positive test outcome, including providing the employer with a re-create of his or her medical marijuana say-so card or other type of proof of registration with the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission .  The employee then has 3 (iii) working days in which to respond.  The employee also has the right to asking a retest of the original sample at his or her own expense.

If, as a New Jersey employer, you have an employee or job bidder who has satisfactorily demonstrated that he or she is a lawful medical marijuana patient, you must allow the employee to utilize medical marijuana off-site, after piece of work hours, and not while in the workplace.  The failure to accommodate a medical marijuana user, at to the lowest degree when the use is outside of the workplace and during not-working hours, could pb to liability nether the NJLAD. Withal, nada in the NJLAD permits employees to use marijuana – medical or not – during piece of work hours or on the workplace bounds outside of regular working hours.

When it comes to issues of disability under the NJLAD, an employer and the employee must appoint in a fact-sensitive and interactive procedure to determine a suitable accommodation.  The employer must act on a instance-by-example basis and go through the reasonable adaptation analysis as it pertains to the particular employee, which may include determining whether the employee can practice the job safely if he or she is nether the influence, or if the employee will medicate off-hours. For now, the New Jersey Supreme Court has made information technology clear that for medical marijuana patients, that reasonable accommodation should at the very least include permitting the employee to utilize medical marijuana outside of working hours and exterior of the workplace.

Santomassimo Davis LLP is a premier Outside General Counsel ™ firm for mid-cap businesses. The issues discussed in this article are typical of those that we handle for clients as we help them navigate the legal and regulatory matters affecting their employment/labor counseling and litigation .

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