If you are a marijuana consumer that is a customer of Dish Network, you might want to reconsider your purchasing decisions. Brandon Coats is a quadriplegic medical marijuana patient in Colorado. He was recently fired as a customer service representative for Dish Network Corp. after failing a random drug test. A lot of people don’t know that they can be fired for using medical marijuana, even in a state where recreational marijuana use is legal.
While such public policy is legal, it’s not moral. The Colorado Appeals Court ruled in April that a company has the right to fire people based on marijuana use, even though it’s legal for both medical and recreational use in Colorado. While companies have the right to fire quadriplegic medical marijuana patients for using their medicine, it doesn’t mean that they should do so. If they had any compassion, they would never do such a thing. Shame on you Dish Network. I’m so happy that I’m not one of your customers. If I was, I would cancel my agreement as fast as my phone would allow.
“Employers ought to reconsider their drug testing policies in states where medical marijuana is legal,” Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “Why discriminate against marijuana users? They’re not different than beer drinkers.”
I absolutely agree with Mr. Maltby. I will not support a company that fires people for using legal marijuana, yet has no problem with what alcohol consumers do outside of the workplace. If you live in a state that doesn’t have a ballot initiative to vote on, realize that you can still vote with your dollars. Don’t support companies that don’t support you.
