Pa. fails to protect marijuana patients on the job

Vague legal safeguards for medical marijuana users in Pennsylvania are forcing patients to choose between their job and a drug they say has changed their life, and leaving skittish employers vulnerable to lawsuits, according to a three-month Spotlight PA investigation.

While state law protects workers from being fired or denied a job just for having a doctor’s permission to use marijuana, those protections become opaque when people actually take the drug.

Employers and workers alike have asked for greater clarity, reporter Ed Mahon found — but the legislature and governor have so far failed to explicitly outline the rights of scores of employers and workers.

Also this week, educators fear a Florida-like proposed ban on elementary school instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation will teach children that being part of the LGBTQ community is wrong. Proponents contend it’s about “parental rights.”

Should the legislation reach Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk, he has vowed to veto it because it is “discriminatory to the LGBTQ community." But next year, Pennsylvania will have a new governor: Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who voted for the bill, or Democratic nominee Josh Shapiro, who opposes the legislation.

Want to learn more about Mastriano, Shapiro, and the three other candidates vying to be Pennsylvania's next governor? Spotlight PA has a comprehensive, nonpartisan guide to the race that provides brief biographies for the candidates as well as donor information. We also break down where the top two candidates stand on the issues.

Spotlight PA wants to empower voters to make an informed decision this November. Read more about how we're approaching this coverage.
 

"I felt betrayed."

—Robert Moyer, who was fired from a Lehigh County warehouse for using medical marijuana. He was initially denied unemployment benefits.

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State Sen. Scott Martin was sitting in his parked car and scrolling through the news on his phone when one story grabbed his attention: A state appellate court had delivered a decision effectively criminalizing hundreds of thousands of unwitting drivers.

Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled that obstructions to any part of a license plate on a car — even to the paint around its edges — technically violated the state’s motor vehicle code and authorized a police officer to pull the driver over. 

As the Lancaster County Republican read on, he looked up and around the parking lot. Nearly every car there, he said, had a frame around the plate. Some had been installed by dealerships. Others displayed favored sports teams.

“I thought, ‘Holy cow … this could impact a lot of people,’” said Martin.

Sometime this month, Martin plans to introduce a bill that would clarify that only an obstruction to pertinent information on a license plate — such as the unique sequence of numbers and letters on it — would qualify as a violation.

“It’s not only fair for our vehicle owners, but for law enforcement too,” Martin said. 

The decision by the state Superior Court stems from a case in Philadelphia, during which a driver was pulled over because the URL of the state’s tourism website (which appears on the bottom of standard-issue plates in Pennsylvania) was blocked by a frame.

In making its decision, a three-judge panel looked to the Pennsylvania motor vehicle code, which states that it’s unlawful to have a plate that is illegible from a reasonable distance, either because it’s dirty or is obscured “in any manner.” 

The judges zeroed in on the “in any manner” language, which they interpreted as prohibiting obstructions to any part of the plate. The judges noted in their ruling that if the legislature wanted a more narrow definition of what constitutes a violation, they would have written the law to reflect that.

Martin said he is working on language for the bill now but acknowledges he is up against a tight deadline: As of Sept. 15, the legislature had less than a dozen scheduled voting days before its two-year session ends. Any measure that doesn’t pass by then would have to be reintroduced in the next session, which begins in January 2023. 

One option to speed up the process, said Martin, is to attach the language to a related transportation bill that is already before the state Senate.

He doesn’t anticipate pushback. Martin said he received bipartisan buy-in when he circulated a memo earlier this month to his colleagues seeking sponsors for the bill.

“It's just one of those common sense things,” he said. —Angela Couloumbis, Spotlight PA

2020 SUBPOENA: 

» INQUIRER: Philly area officers held far-right Oath Keepers membership

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