MEDICAL MARIJUANA NO THREAT TO SAFETY

Source: Mail Tribune, The (Medford, OR)
Copyright: 2008 The Mail Tribune
Author: Laird Funk
Note: Laird Funk of Williams is one of the authors of the original Oregon
Medical Marijuana Act and vice chairman of the Advisory Committee on
Medical Marijuana, though he writes as a private citizen.

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" cried Chicken Little. 
"Emergency! Emergency!" cries Don Harmon ( guest opinion, Feb.  17 )
with just as much connection with reality.  For over three legislative
sessions, Harmon has proclaimed an emergency in the workplace because
some workers use marijuana therapeutically.  He wants to fire any such
person, no matter when or where that use occurs.  It is a safety issue,
he says.

Oregon law says, "Patients and doctors have found marijuana to be an
effective treatment"| and therefore, marijuana should be treated like
other medicines;"|".  In most workplaces there are established
guidelines for other medicines and therapeutic marijuana is best
treated like them.  If there is an issue of impairment, Oregon law
already allows impaired workers to be removed, no matter the cause.

Still, that is not enough for Harmon.  I have watched Harmon testify
before three Legislatures that Oregon needs "Emergency" legislation so
employers can fire therapeutic marijuana users at will.  He and a small
crew of ditto-heads speak in alarmed tones about problems caused by
those workers.  Yet when Rep.  Peter Buckley asked directly how many
accidents had ever been caused by a therapeutic marijuana using
workers, the answer after a long silence was "None." So much for the
"Emergency!"

Given the lack of accidents, focusing on therapeutic use of marijuana
as a cause of workplace impairment sees misguided, at best.  Yet Harmon
claims that one of the biggest dangers to the workplace is the "well
documented" abuses of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program , abuses
which can only be solved by essentially demolishing the program.  He
cites the existence of almost 18,000 registrants as being a problem for
employers and evidence of abuse.  But is it?

Since the beginning of the OMMP, opponents have waved the red herring
claim of rampant abuse at every legislative session and media
opportunity, citing everything from the size of some plants to number
of patients as proof.  But patient numbers or plant sizes are not
evidence of abuse -- convictions are.

Where are these convictions? There should be hundreds a year if abuse
was actually widespread and law enforcement was doing its job.  With
18,000 registrants it would take 180 convictions per year to reach an
abuse rate of 1 percent.  There may be that many arrests, but the
number of cases which are actually tried is, by observation, far fewer,
and convictions fewer yet.  With convictions for violations of the
Oregon Medical Marijuana Act apparently at less than 1 percent, there
is not rampant fraud and abuse but rather impressive compliance with
the law.  No other law can point to that successful compliance rate.

No one could disagree that any impairment in a workplace is a problem,
in some workplaces dangerously so.  So, one would think that Harmon and
his colleagues would be pleased about actual legislation which allows
employers to remove persons from dangerous occupations due their use of
a therapeutic agent which may cause impairment and included therapeutic
agents with proven impairment records as well as therapeutic marijuana.
  After weeks of consulting with groups like Associated General
Contractors, legislators, labor unions and OMMP registrants, Rep. 
Buckley authored such a bill for the current Legislature which
addressed all of the points made by Harmon, except the arbitrary firing
of therapeutic marijuana users.  This bill which by all accounts was
aimed at a safer workplace for all workers, and was supported by
employers and workers was summarily rejected by Harmon and his
ditto-heads.

Why? Because workplace safety is not Harmon's goal, but simply his
cover.  His actual goal is the disestablishment of the OMMP, the most
successful such program in the United States.  One need only to see
that his biggest allies and backers are drug test companies and drug
treatment businesses to recognize the actual plan in play.  The biggest
problem they face is an increasing number of workplaces which are
giving up drug testing because of a lack of its relationship to
workplace safety and the dissatisfaction it causes among all employees.
  Ironically, their problem is that admitted OMMP registrants have not
caused accidents, thus calling into question of the entire premise of
drug testing: that only through costly urinalysis can one tell who is
using drugs.

Any normally intelligent Oregonian supports an impairment-free
workplace.  To do otherwise would be foolish.  By the same token, any
normally intelligent Oregonian can see through Harmon's ruse and
understand his disingenuousness regarding the nonexistent problem of
therapeutic marijuana-using workers.

A safe workplace? Absolutely yes! Arbitrary discrimination? Absolutely
no!

Laird Funk of Williams is one of the authors of the original Oregon
Medical Marijuana Act and vice chairman of the Advisory Committee on
Medical Marijuana , though he writes as a private citizen.

 http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n217/a06.html?397