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Utah Employers Struggle with Medical Cannabis Consumption 

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[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]R[/dropcap]ecently proposed Senate Bill 121 would clarify that Utah employers can legally refuse permission for their employees to use medical cannabis, even off the clock, despite state law.

According to Deseret News, many cannabis advocates are against it and claim that if cannabis is genuinely treated as medicine and not a recreational substance then it shouldn’t be any different than any prescription medications. 

“Personally, certainly, I would be concerned if any company is taking any adverse action against a patient using their medicine, but our goal is to see that changed just through education and awareness rather than forcing them to change through the law,” said Connor Boyack, president of Libertas Institute, who supported the cannabis ballot initiative. “When we did the negotiations over Prop. 2, and even in Prop. 2 itself, we never sought to compel private businesses to allow the use of cannabis by their employees. As a free-market organization ourselves, we wouldn’t want the government to coerce companies in that way, and so we thought it proper to keep the policy that way.”

Many also feel that in Utah cannabis is prescribed in different ways for different treatments, so it should be being treated more as a medicine than in other states, and this should be honored. “Utah law comes much closer to asking doctors to essentially prescribe a particular course of cannabis treatment—including cannabis types and amounts—than the laws in nearly any other state that we know of,” said Christine Stenquist, president of Together for Responsible Use and Cannabis Education, or TRUCE.

The bill is being heard by the Utah Senate Health and Human Services Committee soon. If passed, it would require government employers to allow their employees to use cannabis. It would mean that employees could only get in trouble for using medical cannabis if they are actually using it on the job.

Ever since Utah opened up its medical cannabis program, patients have had trouble getting access to cannabis. This bill could clarify patient access to the medicine that they need.

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