For better or for worse, California is on the cutting edge of a lot of workforce legal trends. 

Here is the latest one: the state Supreme Court ruled this week that despite a voter-approved law that makes medical marijuana legal, workers who indulge can still be “fired for testing positive for the drug at work.” According to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle, Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar said, “We have no reason to conclude the voters intended to speak so broadly, and in a context so far removed from the criminal law, as to require employers to accommodate marijuana use.”

This is a big issue because, as the Chronicle story noted, “Lawyers on both sides of the case said pre-employment testing for marijuana is common among California employers, especially those that have federal contracts and are legally required to keep their workplaces drug-free.”

The issue isn’t over, however. Some California legislators are vowing to pass legislation addressing the issue. A story in the Los Angeles Times said that “Within hours of the court’s decision, Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) announced that he would introduce legislation to prevent employers from discriminating against medical marijuana users. The people of California did not intend that patients be unemployed in order to use medical marijuana,” he said.

Frankly, I don’t think the people of California thought too deeply about the possible workplace repercussions when they passed the medical marijuana initiative back in 1996. Now, you have two legal issues that are at odds: a law that allows people to use medical marijuana legally for medical purposes versus the legally mandated need for employers to provide a drug-free workplace.

Is there a right answer here? How do we handle compassionate policies and laws that are at odds with safety and common sense in the workplace? If you have an answer, I’d love to see it—either as a comment here or an e-mail to me at jhollon@workforce.com.