Dear Pot Lawyer,
Can I still be fired for testing positive for cannabis even if I’ve never been high at work?
We wrote about this back in 2015, and there have been some developments on this front since then—but unfortunately, right now the answer is the same: Yes, you can still be terminated for testing positive for cannabis even if you never consume on workdays. Since Oregon is an at-will state, employers have broad authority to fire employees for any reason that doesn’t rise to unlawful discrimination under state or federal law, including for no reason at all (unless your contract says otherwise). Discriminating against cannabis consumers, even medical marijuana users, is perfectly acceptable.
This makes sense from the employer’s perspective. Let’s use alcohol as an example. Alcohol has been legal since the end of prohibition, but firing an employee for showing up drunk on a workday probably won’t raise any controversy. In the same way, few people would expect to deserve legal protection for showing up to work stoned. But you certainly wouldn’t expect to be fired for having a few drinks over the weekend, although technically this would be legal. The trouble is that, unlike alcohol, employers claim they can’t easily differentiate between the weekend toker and the workday user. Because cannabis remains detectable in the body for a while after use, there is no generally accepted technology available to test for impairment.