Human Resource Blog

Montana Drug Free Policy

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One of our best employees has severe osteoarthritis and frequently takes drugs at work. We are a Montana drug-free workplace. Is there any way to avoid firing her?

You don’t need to find a way to avoid firing her. You simply don’t have to fire her.

Drug-free workplace policies are meant to stop the use of illegal drugs in the workplace. Drugs like cocaine, marijuana, and heroin. They are also designed to stop the abuse of legal prescription drugs, like Oxycontin and amphetamine.

The goal is a policy that is fair, clear, and enforced the same way for everyone. The goal is not to penalize somebody for taking aspirin to relieve the pain of a headache.

Your policy wasn’t meant to penalize the diabetic employee who has to use insulin on the job. Your goal is not to fire the employee who comes to work under the influence of the blood-pressure medication he must take. You are not supposed to be stopping a worker from taking her birth control pills in her cubicle or in the lunchroom.

That would not be fair. Those employees, in fact, could sue you under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA.

You mentioned that the employee with rheumatoid arthritis is one of your best workers. Would a policy that punished her, even though she was taking anti-inflammatory and anti-pain medications prescribed by her doctor, be a fair policy? The answer is no. If the medications were prescribed by her physician, and if she’s using them according to their instructions, then the matter is clearly outside the area of your concern.

In fact, you need not even know what she is taking her medication for. In this case you do, so confidentiality requires that you do not tell anyone else about her condition, including her coworkers.

You could ask her for a statement from her doctor outlining the fact that she has a condition requiring these medications. Remember that if you do, fairness would require you to do the same with other employees.