Less than half of the states where the drug treatment is legal protect patients from employment discrimination. Courts have generally sided with employers -- until recently.
Summary: Of the 33 states where medical marijuana is legal, 14 protect patients from employment discrimination. Recent court rulings signal a potential shift in favor of employees.
Ohio employers can fire employees who use medical marijuana or refuse to hire them in the first place.
Medical marijuana is legal in Ohio, but it remains illegal at the federal level and Ohio employers are testing for it like they would any other illegal drug.
“Under Ohio law, employers don’t have to currently hire someone who uses medical marijuana and they don’t have to retain an employee that tests positive for medical marijuana,” said Michael Griffaton, an attorney at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP.
A Virginia lumber company has been fined more than $24,000 in connection with the death of an employee last year. R.A. Yancey Lumber Co. in Crozet was fined after the state Department of Labor and Industry found four violations while investigating the worker's death.
According to investigation documents, 46-year-old Floriberta Macedo-Diaz was walking to her work area before the start of her shift in July 2018 when she passed by a stack of lumber pieces weighing about 260 pounds each.
Medical cannabis laws are associated with a 34% decline in workplace deaths for adults age 25 to 44, a new study finds.
The reason? Those workers might be drinking less alcohol and taking less pills due to legalization.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is struggling to contain the fallout from a data breach involving thousands of companies, highlighting the tension between the agency’s mandate to protect consumers and to prevent reputational damage to product makers.
Excessive noise is prevalent across industries. From manufacturing to construction, agriculture to oil and gas, more than 22 million U.S. workers are exposed to hazardous noise each year.1 Wherever unsafe levels of noise exist, employers are responsible for providing hearing protection devices (HPDs).
The International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA) produces the American National Standard for Emergency Eyewash and Shower Equipment, ANSI Z358.1, to establish uniform minimum performance and use requirements.
Workplace fatalities have fallen by an average of 19.5 percent in the 29 states and District of Columbia that have legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
Those surprising results from a study in the International Journal of Drug Policy run counter to post-legalization predictions that marijuana’s effects on motor skills and cognitive function would cause an increase in workplace accidents.
OSHA inspectors who arrived at a Florida construction site to investigate an employee’s near-fatal fall didn’t have to look far to find fall and other safety hazards at the project. Three of the four Florida-based residential contractors involved with the project earned citations for fall hazard-related violations. The four companies were cited for a total of 12 violations, with $220,114 in proposed penalties.
Mobile elevated work platforms, such as boom and scissor lifts, are powerful, durable and useful machines that help workers perform a wide range of tasks at height. Training on the safe use of these machines is crucial to decrease the risk of injuries, property damage, liability on the worksite.
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