Michigan Medical Marijuana Law could be risky for Small Business

Here is the scenario.  You are a business owner in Michigan and you drug test your employees as part of your safety and risk protocol. One of your employees comes up positive for marijuana, and tell you that it is prescribed and is for medical uses. However now you are in a dilemma. Your handbook says that the employee must be fired for positive drug tests. The employee signed off on the handbook. His job requires utmost safety as it is considered high hazard. So you as the employer fire the employee. Now Michigan law is "mum" on whether you did the right thing or the wrong thing as a business owner. The only thing left to do is sue and fight it out in court. This is a risk managers night mare. The Michigan law silence, on private workplace issues regarding medical marijuana, only opens up potential litigation that will be hard to quantify. In my opinion as a risk manager it may be a risk that cannot be managed with standard risk mitigation techniques. I also expect similiar laws in other States. It looks like the lawyers will be real busy in the future. Until next time be careful out there and know your risks. K

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