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Mike Boyer made a big splash on Tuesday when he became the first person to buy state-licensed weed in Spokane. Then he made an even bigger splash nationally and internationally when he posted his resume on Craigslist later Tuesday stating:
“I lost my job due to the news coverage of me being the FIRST PERSON TO BUY MARIJUANA LEGALLY IN SPOKANE! I regret nothing. But now im jobless and have decided to post my resume …”
Right about then news organizations on the Internets took over, started cannibalizing each other, and the story became too confused to figure out … so we gave him a call and here’s how he says it all went down.
First, the good news for Boyer, the temp agency that was giving him 40 hours a week working in the auto-auction industry – TrueBlue Labor Ready — has, he told us, given him his job back and will pay him for the day he missed, Wednesday. Boyer accepted the job and pay.
Here’s how it all played out according to Boyer:
He’s shown buying the first legal marijuana sold at Spokane Green Leaf on Tuesday.
He’s shown on one news station smoking what appears to be marijuana: “We followed him back home with his weed as he enjoyed his first smoke,” said KREM’s reporter (vide at bottom of story). “Now okay in the state of Washington.”
Apparently, a client of TrueBlue sees Boyer on television at the marijuana grand opening and complains.
Boyer says that at 2 p.m. he bought the weed and at 2:40 got a text from TrueBlue telling him he had 24 hours to take a drug/urine test or he’d be fired.
He said he called TrueBlue and told them he would fail the test and they told him he would be terminated.
He also got a phone call on Tuesday from a part-time employer Kodiak Security telling him he had to take a drug/urine test … which he said he did take on Wednesday morning. He said he waited until Wednesday so that he would not be driving under the influence.
Then the media storm hit … and the story got more and more convoluted.
Thursday morning, he said, TrueBlue called him and asked him to come into the office. He assumed it was to make his termination official, but instead they offered him his job back because he was not high on the job and had used on his legitimate day off.
The Spokesman Review reported, “Kym Ramey, human resources manager for Kodiak, said that Boyer, who has worked there for several weeks, is still employed by the firm.” Boyer has not heard form Kodiak (as of this writing) and thinks Kodiak is waiting for the test results before contacted him.
The Associated Press got a hold of TrueBlue: “Stacey Burke, a spokeswoman Tacoma-based TrueBlue, says company policy prohibits being under the influence on the job. She said there’s no reason he would have been fired for having bought the pot, nor would the purchase have given the company reason to order him to take a drug test. She says the company is looking into Boyer’s claims, and that if he was fired outside of protocol, he would be reinstated.”
Thursday morning the snake ate its tail when we called Boyer and got him to spell it all out for us.
So, Boyer — who fast became the poster-smoker for complications surrounding employment and the now-legally available marijuana — has his main job back and doesn’t blame his employer for the confusion.
The mixup, he said, is just “part of the times” and that “we’ve now made a huge hurdle, and we have to now finish out the race and get down to the fine print” of what is and isn’t acceptable for employment.
What’s the law say?
That said, as the Spokesman Review put it: “… employers are allowed to continue testing their workers pursuant to their internal employment policies, according to the Washington Liquor Control Board, which is handling the implementation of marijuana rules. This includes screening applicants for jobs.”
And, so far, Colorado courts have found that a man fired for a positive drug test was legally fired, even though he has a medical card. The Denver Post reported in their story “Colorado attorney general backs firing of medical-marijuana patient“:
The Colorado Court of Appeals — the state’s second-highest court — last year upheld Dish Network’s firing of a quadriplegic medical-marijuana patient for a positive drug test. Although there is no allegation that Brandon Coats was stoned at work, the company said it has a zero-tolerance policy on marijuana.
So, that’s the mystery of the Man Fired For Being Seen Buying Weed. And, well, there’ll be a lot more confusion and back and forth in the courts before this all gets completely ironed out.
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Wed Jul 09 13:57:50 PDT 2014
First Spokane marijuana customer claims coverage cost him his job
Translated by Siri
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