Puerto Rico protects registered cannabis patients against job discrimination

Registered medical-cannabis patients in Puerto Rico gained express protection against employment discrimination on 29 July 2021. Patients who identified themselves to their employer became a protected group in recruitment, hiring, dismissal and other employment decisions, subject to specific exceptions.

Medical access had left employment protection unresolved

The 2017 medical-cannabis law established the programme’s statutory rules for patients, doctors and businesses. It protected conduct within that system from Puerto Rico criminal sanctions.

It had left employment protections unaddressed. The legislature later described that gap when explaining why it had added the 2021 amendment.

The new rule connected a person’s registered patient status to the employment laws protecting them from discrimination. Its practical importance reached both someone applying for a job and someone already working.

The protection covered more than dismissal

Employers could not discriminate against a registered, authorised patient in recruitment, hiring or appointment, or impose an employment penalty because of that status.

The law also protected employers from Puerto Rico penalties or the loss of local contracts, licences, permits, certifications, benefits or funds solely because they employed registered patients.

That paired approach addressed the position of both the worker and the employer participating in the territory’s medical system.

Employers retained specific grounds for an exception

An employer could establish that medical-cannabis use posed a real threat of harm to people or property, or interfered with the employee’s essential duties.

Another exception concerned exposure to losing a licence, permit or certification connected to federal law, a federal programme or federal funding. The law also withheld protection when a patient possessed or used cannabis at work or during working hours without the employer’s written permission.

The employer had to establish an applicable exception by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning that it was more likely than not. The statute directed that the protections be interpreted generously in favour of the patient.

Disability law received a further correction in 2022

The October 2022 amendment addressed a separate problem. Puerto Rico’s disability law excluded active users of drugs classified as illegal under federal law, which could undermine a registered cannabis patient’s claim to protection.

Lawmakers added an exception for registered medical-cannabis patients so that authorised use would not itself trigger that exclusion.

For people in Puerto Rico’s medical programme, the two reforms brought legal protection beyond access to a dispensary: one addressed employment decisions, while the other removed an obstacle within disability law.^[1][2][3]