Employer's Duty To Accommodate Medical Marijuana

The employer community grapples with accommodation all the time. The task is complicated by the question of how to deal with an employee's lawful use of a product – marijuana – that is illegal in most contexts and which is perceived as recreational and hazardous. This article looks at how human rights tribunals have judged the issue in Canada.

We note that with the Supreme Court of Canada ruling in Smith, the newly-legal alternative forms of medical cannabis, employees have new legal treatment options that employers will be required to consider as possible accommodations.

In the case of Wilson v. Transparent Glazing Systems¹, the claimant worked for Transparent Glazing Systems (TGS), the defendant, as a glazier. He obtained a medical marijuana license so that he could smoke marijuana to relieve chronic back pain and migraine headaches. He claimed to have disclosed this information when he was hired and assured his employer that he did not smoke marijuana before or