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Amazon is throwing its weight behind federal legislation to legalize marijuana and pledging to no longer screen some of its workers for the drug.
In a blog post Tuesday, Amazon's consumer boss, Dave Clark, said the company supports the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, reintroduced in the House late last month. The MORE Act would decriminalize cannabis at the federal level, expunge criminal records and invest in impacted communities.
A former Amazon warehouse worker who sued the company after allegedly being fired over his use of medical marijuana is better positioned to win the case following a procedural ruling by a federal judge on Thursday.
Last year, the ex-employee filed the suit, alleging that he was terminated after testing positive for THC and subsequently requesting a disability accommodation for his anxiety disorder to allow him to use cannabis in accordance with state law. And last week, he scored a small but significant procedural victory.
When an Amazon employee in Edison with a medical cannabis card tried to inform his employer that he would fail a drug test due to his prescription, the company allegedly had him take it anyway and fired him for failing it, according to a suit filed in November. A funeral director in Linden was allegedly terminated in 2016 after his employer learned he was prescribed medical cannabis to treat cancer symptoms.
In November, we wrote about a lawsuit filed against Amazon by a New Jersey man claiming he was wrongfully terminated due to a failed marijuana drug test despite being a patient in the state’s medical marijuana program. Now, New Jersey state lawmakers have advanced a bill that would require workers’ compensation to cover medical marijuana.
New Jersey employers it’s time to sit up and take notice of how medical marijuana may affect your human resource policies in the wake of a recent disability discrimination lawsuit against Amazon. The case has relevant employment law lessons for employers of all sizes ranging from companies with one employee to large corporate entities.
In the summer of 2018, Amazon allegedly administered a cheek swab drug test to a top-performing warehouse worker in Edison, New Jersey. The worker used medical cannabis to treat panic attacks, and the test results came back positive.
Medical cannabis is legal in the state of New Jersey. But even after providing the company with a doctor’s note, the worker was fired.
A lawsuit filed in Middlesex County by a former Amazon employee is the latest development highlighting an emerging disconnect in workplace law: the clash between companies that have zero-tolerance drug policies and the state’s recognition of marijuana as a legitimate medical remedy for a host of maladies.
A New Jersey man’s career with Amazon came to a sudden — and unfair — end once the online retail giant learned he used medical marijuana, a new lawsuit alleges.
Amazon AMZN, +0.08% fired the warehouse associate, who used marijuana to treat his panic and anxiety disorder, and also “blacklisted” him from other jobs with Amazon-owned companies including Whole Foods, court papers contend.
D.J.C. claims in the lawsuit that he was prescribed medical marijuana for anxiety and panic disorders, and that he had legally obtained a medical marijuana card. Use of medical marijuana to treat certain conditions has been legal in New Jersey since 2010.
The lawsuit, by a plaintiff identified as D.J.C., was filed in Middlesex County Superior Court in October and removed to federal court Friday. The Amazon filing comes just as the state Supreme Court is poised to take up the issue of medical marijuana in the workplace.
The justices announced in June that they will hear an appeal concerning the obligation of employers to accommodate medical marijuana use. The plaintiff in that case, a fired funeral home director, has asked the court to overturn a ruling finding employers are not obligated to accommodate medical marijuana usage.
