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New York Town Owes Nearly $200,000 After Firing Medical Cannabis Patient
A New York jury has found that the city of Amsterdam discriminated against a medical cannabis patient when he was fired for failing a random drug screening.
The city of Amsterdam, New York owes nearly $200,000 after firing a medical marijuana patient for failing a drug screening for cannabis, a jury decided in a legal action filed by the dismissed city worker. The jury found that the city had discriminated against Thomas Apholz, a wastewater treatment plant worker who was suspended in February 2020 and later fired after testing positive for marijuana.
“They couldn’t fire him fast enough,” Kevin A. Luibrand, Apholz’s attorney told the Times-Union. “They gave him a termination letter on a Monday that fired him the prior Sunday so he couldn’t present his prescription card.”
New York legalized the medical use of marijuana in 2014 with the passage of the Compassionate Care Act, which went into effect in 2016. State law also grants registered medical marijuana patients disability status, which affords protection from employment discrimination for using cannabis.
Patient Fired After Failed Drug Screening
In 2017, Apholz tested positive for cannabis in a random drug screening but was allowed to keep his job under a “last chance agreement” he signed with the city. Under the terms of the agreement, he was subject to termination for future violations of the city’s drug policies.
Apholz tested positive for cannabis in a random drug screening again in 2020 and was subsequently suspended and eventually fired. He then filed suit in state Supreme Court in Montgomery County, alleging unlawful employment discrimination and failure to accommodate his disability as required by the New York Humans Rights Law.
A year before the second positive drug screening, Apholz had obtained a medical marijuana recommendation for lower back pain. In a five-day trial before Judge Rebecca Slezak, Apholz’s attorneys noted that he only used cannabis in capsule form “in the evening at home when his pain was at its worst” and had never used medical marijuana at work. According to court records, Apholz notified “agents” of the city that he was a certified patient in the state Medical Marijuana Program and had a valid Department of Health certification for a medical marijuana prescription at the time of the drug screening.
The city “was made aware of plaintiff’s prescription multiple times, and therefore his disability, before he was terminated,” court filings state. “Defendant has presented no evidence that plaintiff’s use of marijuana impacted his ability to complete his job duties in any way.”
“The evidence indicates that plaintiff was an effective worker while having his marijuana prescription, and that he can perform his job safely and satisfactorily, and defendant has failed to provide any evidence on the record that plaintiff’s use of marijuana has ever negatively impacted his job performance or placed anyone in danger,” court filings state.
Attorneys for the city argued that Apholz had not properly notified the city’s employee relations director about his disability and medical marijuana prescription as required by city policy. Instead, the city maintained that Apholz had notified city engineer Mike Clark of his medical marijuana registration on March 5, 2020, after he had already been suspended for the second failed drug screening. Additionally, the city’s attorneys claimed that Apholz never presented any affirmation the prescription would not interfere with his performance of his “safety sensitive position” involving the use of large machinery and handling hazardous chemicals.
Jury Finds In Patients’ Favor
The jury reached its verdict on June 30, finding that the city discriminated against Apholz for using medical marijuana and awarding him a judgment of $191,762. He is also eligible to request the judge to order reinstatement to his job and for the city to pay his legal fees.
“The jury found that senior Amsterdam city officials refused to provide Mr. Apholz an accommodation for his medical condition after he informed the city that he had a medical marijuana prescription following a random drug test, and summarily fired him on March 16, 2020 without a civil service hearing and without having any discussions with him about his medical condition,” according to a statement from Luibrand quoted by The Daily Gazette.
Aaron Bloom, the CEO of DocMJ, a medical marijuana physician practice that provides compassionate care to patients, says that the jury’s verdict underscores the importance of laws that protect medical cannabis patients.
“Respecting patients’ medical cannabis rights, particularly in the workplace, is of utmost importance. It is crucial to acknowledge the legitimacy of medical cannabis as a therapeutic option and ensure that patients who rely on it for their well-being are treated with fairness and understanding,” Bloom writes in an email to High Times. “Medical cannabis patients also have a duty to not show up for work under the influence of cannabis in a manner that violates workplace safety. By providing appropriate accommodations and respecting the rights of employees with valid medical cannabis prescriptions, we can create an environment that promotes inclusivity and supports individuals in managing their health conditions effectively.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/new-york-town-owes-nearly-200000-after-firing-medical-cannabis-patient/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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