Following termination from his job earlier in the year due to a positive drug test for cannabis, a New York firefighter is filing a lawsuit against the City of Buffalo, New York and the local fire department for wrongful termination.
Scott Martin, a 12-year veteran with the department who has also served with the US Air Force in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a registered, medical cannabis patient in New York, and his lawyer David C. Holland, who also specializes in cannabis law, said Martin was “terminated wrongfully because the collective bargaining agreement hasn’t been updated.” The lawsuit was filed on May 5.
Martin uses medical cannabis for a number of reasons, namely to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and back pain from his military service, firefighting work and time as an EMT.
Martin says in his affidavit, “At Firebase Salerno, we were subjected to regular rocket and other terrorist attacks. To say that these attacks were frightening is to grossly understate the physical and emotional toll those frequent incursions cause me and my fellow service members,” regarding Afghanistan.
Martin also says he suffered multiple injuries from falls and flying debris while working as a firefighter, and as an EMT, he regularly tended to people with gruesome injuries, anywhere from car accidents to shootings. Due to the collection of experiences, Martin says doctors initially prescribed him with medication like OxyContin and later on, shots of Tramadol into his lower spine, and he did not like how the drugs made him feel.
Following these treatments, Martin was prescribed medical cannabis from another doctor, which he says has greatly improved his health and wellbeing.
“People think you have to do it all the time. You don’t. I do it before I go to bed. It metabolizes, and then I’m not high from it,” Martin told The Buffalo News. “I don’t need to be high when I’m at work. I’m focused when I’m at work.”
Martin also indicated that cannabis was a better treatment for his pain and less addictive.
According to the lawsuit, Martin was told he must submit a random drug test, and when he showed up for the test on December 15, he indicated he would test positive because of his status as a certified medical cannabis patient. A week later, he received a letter informing him he would be suspended without pay and to seek substance abuse treatment.
Martin did, and when he was retested on February 5, the sample tested positive for cannabis again, because he had not discontinued his medical regimen. He was fired after that based on the union’s collective bargaining agreement. This agreement was initially from 1984 and last updated in 2011, but it has not been updated since the state legalized medical cannabis in 2014.
Holland argues that, under the New York’s medical cannabis law, the conditions that can be treated under the Compassionate Care Act should be considered disabilities, therefore firing him should be considered workplace discrimination.
“The City of Buffalo, it’s so outdated,” Martin said. “The Fire Department still uses carbon paper. You know: press hard and get five copies…they just don’t want to get with the times.”
