The duty-to-accommodate doesn’t make the news very often, but it did last week in an Ottawa Citizen article examining whether the use of medical marijuana could force the return of smoking rooms.
“In an era of smoking bans on patios, parks and restaurants, the notion may seem absurd, but those relying on marijuana to ease chronic pain and other conditions may soon be demanding accommodation for their medically prescribed and commercially grown medication.”
Medical marijuana use has been on the rise since it was first legalized in 2001. In just over a decade, the number of Canadians authorized to possess medical marijuana has jumped from 477 in 2002 to 37,359 in 2013. Health Canada projects the number to rise to 58,000 in 2014 and skyrocket to 450,000 in another ten years.
It’s no wonder some labour experts are predicting that this will become a big issue – one that is already sparking debate.
Last year, an RCMP officer made headlines when his employer told him he couldn’t smoke his legally prescribed marijuana while in uniform. The officer has been using the drug to help him calm down and treat his PTSD symptoms.
The RCMP felt that smoking in public or while in uniform would “not portray the right message to the general public.”
The use of medical marijuana poses a complex issue for employers, who have to grapple with the duty to accommodate on one side; public perception and health and safety on the other.
Given its long history of being a controlled substance, users of medical marijuana have to combat a certain level of stigma associated with the drug. The Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries hopes that discussions like these will help shift the public perception of marijuana from illicit drug to medicine.
On the health and safety front, some employers may be concerned about a person’s ability to safety and effectively perform their work while taking the drug. It’s important that these employees are not endangering their safety or that of others. In the future, it may be possible for patients to obtain “designer marijuana”; strains of the drug designed to treat specific symptoms without affecting cognitive and motor skills.
But these issues don’t negate the employer’s duty to accommodate these individuals to the point of undue hardship. Fundamentally, these are people who are merely treating a disability.
So, will the duty to accommodate lead to smoking rooms? It could: the cost of establishing a smoking room doesn’t constitute undue hardship. In other cases, a person’s accommodation needs could easily be addressed by simply offering more frequent breaks.
In an article for Occupational Safety Canada, Cheryl Edwards offers a few tips for employers. Among them, she suggests working “with the employee, his union representative and medical professionals to determine what checks and balances will need to be in place to ensure the employee, co-workers, the public and the environment are properly safeguarded.”
Finally, she recommends not getting distracted by the drug causing the impairment, but to focus on the issue of impairment instead.
“Treat this source the same as you would any other prescription drug.”