A U.S. district court recently held that federal law does
not preempt the anti-discrimination provision in Connecticut’s medical
marijuana law prohibiting employers from terminating or refusing to hire
individuals based on their status as qualifying medical marijuana
patients. The ruling is important for Maine employers because of the
similarities between Maine’s and Connecticut’s medical marijuana statutes.
The plaintiff in the case, Noffsinger v. SSC Niantic
Operating Co., LLC, had received a verbal offer of employment from a
nursing facility, but was not hired after she disclosed that she was a
qualifying medical marijuana patient and tested positive for marijuana on a
pre-employment drug screen. Noffsinger sued in state court claiming
that the facility’s refusal to hire her violated the anti-discrimination
provision in Connecticut’s medical marijuana law. The facility removed
the case to federal court, where it argued that Noffsinger’s complaint should
be dismissed because federal law preempted Connecticut’s medical marijuana
statute.
In denying the facility’s motion to dismiss, the district
court found no actual conflict between Connecticut’s medical marijuana law and
the federal laws identified by the facility. For example, the court found
that the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) did not preempt Connecticut’s law
because the CSA regulates drugs, not employment, and therefore did not conflict
with the employment-related provisions in Connecticut’s law. The court
also found no conflict with the ADA; although the ADA does not protect current
users of illegal drugs, the court observed that Connecticut’s law did not
authorize the use of drugs in the workplace, and nothing in the ADA suggested
that it was intended to regulate the use of drugs outside the workplace or
limit the abilities of states to do so. Finally, although the facility
argued that Connecticut’s anti-discrimination provision was preempted by the
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which prohibits the sale or distribution
of unapproved medications, the court found that it, like the CSA, did not
govern the employment relationship and therefore did not preempt Connecticut’s
anti-discrimination provision.
This decision is important for Maine employers because, like
Connecticut’s statute, Maine’s medical marijuana statute contains an
anti-discrimination provision that prohibits employers from making employment
decisions based on an individual’s status as a medical marijuana patient.
The decision therefore provides a potential roadmap on how an employer’s
preemption arguments might play out with respect to Maine’s medical marijuana
law.
