Off-the-clock pot use shouldn’t be grounds for firing, poll finds

Sixty-four percent of Americans said it would be wrong to fire employees for off-the-clock marijuana use in states where the drug is legal, according to a new poll.

A similar percentage also said the same about employees drinking during non-work hours, according to the poll conducted by HuffPost/YouGov.

The poll comes has more than a dozen states have already legalized medical marijuana, creating a patchwork of conflicting state and federal laws. That’s created confusion in the workplace and led to lawsuits after employers have fired workers for after-hours marijuana use.

Dish Network, for instance, fired a phone operator in 2010 after the employee failed a random drug test. Brandon Coats, who has used medical marijuana since 2009, sued Dish in an attempt to get his job back. The Colorado Court of Appeals, however, found that there is no employment protection for medical marijuana since federal law still outlaws cannabis.

HuffPost/YouGov’s poll, conducted Oct. 31 through Nov. 1, surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults from a sample that matched demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.

The poll found that when the question did not say whether marijuana use was legal in the state, answers changed slightly. In that instance, 45% of respondents said it’d be unacceptable for employees to be fired for pot use outside of work.

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