A blog chronicling the evolution and implementation of marijuana laws in the United States
Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.
Before we get to COVID-19, let’s examine some non-virus news, shall we?
What would have been our big story of the week is that the Alabama state Senate has approved medical marijuana in the state. The…
Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.
The big news this week was the FDA’s report to Congress on CBD. The report did not set out a timeline for usage guidelines, citing the need for more data. Commissioner Stephen Hahn did…
Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.
To cap or not to cap, that was the question facing the state of Florida this week. Lawmakers wrestled with the issue of capping THC content in medical marijuana for those patients under the…
Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.
The big news this week is that Alabama is considering a bill that would legalize medical marijuana in the state. The bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee; it now heads to a full Senate vote later…
In a recent decision, Palmiter v. Commonwealth Health Systems, the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas held that: (a) the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Act (“MMA”) creates a private right of action for wrongful termination; and, alternatively, (b) an employee who claims to have been terminated for medical marijuana use authorized under the MMA can bring a claim of wrongful termination in violation of public policy. This Pennsylvania court now joins courts in several other states, including Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, which have allowed adverse action claims against employers by employees or applicants who used medical marijuana under state law.…
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In 2016, Pennsylvania enacted its “Medical Marijuana Act” (MMA), which permits individuals suffering from certain conditions to use marijuana for medicinal use. Several provisions in the MMA impact employers. For instance, the MMA makes it unlawful for an employer to “discharge, threaten, refuse to hire or otherwise discriminate or retaliate against an employee regarding an employee’s compensation, terms, conditions, location or privileges solely on the basis of such employee’s status as an individual who is certified to use medical marijuana.” In other words, taking adverse action against an employee based solely on the individual’s status as a medical marijuana cardholder would likely be considered discrimination under the MMA.…
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Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana. There’s lots of news to cover this week, so let’s jump right in.
New Jersey is talking about decriminalizing marijuana. Regular readers will doubtless recall that legalization failed earlier this year and that lawmakers are considering…
On November 18, 2019, Florida Senator Lori Berman (D) introduced Senate Bill 962, which proposes to provide job applicants and employees who use medical marijuana various protections in employment. If enacted, Florida would join the growing number of states to pass laws with similar protections, including most recently in Illinois.…
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Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.
Hemp was in the news quite a bit this week. The 2019 edition of the Hemp and CBD Industry Factbook released figures that show retail sales of CBD topping $1 billion this year, and predicted that…
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit last week in the D.C. Superior Court on behalf of Doretha Barber, a sanitation worker with the D.C. Department of Public Works, who claims that she was denied reasonable accommodation and placed on an indefinite leave of absence after disclosing that she is a medical marijuana card-holder under the District’s medical marijuana program. Specifically, Ms. Barber alleges that she suffers from degenerative disc disease which causes her debilitating back pain and for which she was recently prescribed medical marijuana for off-duty use only. When Ms. Barber requested a temporary transfer to a clerical position during the fall leaf raking season as an accommodation of her disability, she was purportedly denied the transfer, and after she disclosed that she possessed a medical marijuana card, she was allegedly placed on an unpaid leave of absence and told that she could not resume her duties as a sanitation worker until she successfully passed a drug test (which she would inevitably fail due to her medical marijuana use) because she was working in a “safety sensitive position.”…
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