This week, Governor Wolf signed House Bill 1024, allowing certain revisions to the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Act (the “Act”). While the revisions do not specifically implicate the workplace, and do not provide guidance to employers on navigating medical marijuana use by employees, employers should, nonetheless, pay attention.
What changed?
House Bill 1024 makes permanent three…
The answer to this question is . . . it depends. Based on three recent court decisions, whether the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (“PHRA”) protects medical marijuana (“MMJ”) users from discrimination on the basis of their current use of MMJ appears to depend on the specific accommodation requested by the user. We summarize these key…
On February 22, 2021, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed three bills that legalize the use of cannabis for those over the age of 21, decriminalize possession of less than six ounces of cannabis and establish civil penalties for use by anyone under age 21. The bills are the enabling legislation following a constitutional amendment…
Earlier this month, in the case of Hudnell v. Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, District Court Judge Gerald Pappert denied Jefferson’s motion to dismiss Hudnell’s claims for violation of the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Act (“Act”), making him the second judge in Pennsylvania to uphold the right of a certified medical marijuana user to bring a cause…
Lately, products containing CBD (from beer to skin cream to oils that can be diffused and vaped) seem to be all the rage. Why are CBD products suddenly turning up everywhere (your local Sheetz convenience store for example)? Blame it on the Farm Bill! The Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (otherwise known as the U.S.…
Two years ago, the first medical marijuana dispensary opened in Pennsylvania. Since that time, well over a hundred thousand Pennsylvania residents have become certified to use medical marijuana, additional conditions were added to the listed of qualifying serious health conditions and employers started to field questions from employees who wanted to use (or already were…
Prior to July 2nd, New Jersey’s Medical Cannabis Act lacked protections for employees’ off-duty medical marijuana use. Indeed, last year the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey held that nothing in the Medical Cannabis Act “requires an employer to waive a drug test as a condition of employment for federally-prohibited…
What’s new in the world of medical marijuana, as it impacts your workplace? Quite a bit, actually. Here is the rundown.
PA Medical Marijuana Act – Anxiety and Tourette’s Syndrome Added to List of Serious Medical Conditions
Effective July 20, 2019, the Pennsylvania Department of Health added anxiety disorders and Tourette’s syndrome to the list…
At the end of 2018, the Superior Court of Delaware held that a terminated employee could proceed with his lawsuit, alleging that his employer terminated him for being a medical marijuana cardholder. Chance v. Kraft Heinz Foods Co. In allowing the suit to move forward, the Delaware Court found that the anti-discrimination language in the…
On October 17, the Pennsylvania Senate signed the previously approved House Bill 1840, known as the “Protz Workers’ Compensation Legislative Fix,” which is expected to be signed into law by Governor Tom Wolf within the next several days.
Why is a “Protz Fix” necessary? Employers in Pennsylvania suffered a major blow, when the Impairment Rating…
