Search Results: walmart (23)

Photo: Joseph Casias
Cancer patient Joseph Casias, former Employee of the Year at Walmart: “I just don’t understand why it is so bad to use something that helps me and many others who suffer with illnesses and pain”

​Once in awhile, corporate America commits such a glaring injustice that people are sickened by the inhumanity of it. Such was the case last year when a Michigan Walmart fired its former Employee of the Year, Joseph Casias, after he showed up positive for marijuana on a routine drug test — despite the fact that he is a seriously ill cancer patient legally using medical cannabis on the recommendation of his physician.

Casias, 30, who has an inoperable brain tumor, was sacked by the Battle Creek Walmart after he failed a routine urine screen following a workplace injury. And despite a chorus of nationwide protest, the corporate behemoth stuck by its heartless decision and eventually prevailed in court after a judge upheld the dismissal.
Casias said that he only used marijuana after his work shift, and never used on the job. He tried cannabis after his oncologist suggested it.

Graphic: Adam Vieyra/SD City Beat
The future of marijuana retailing in America? We hope not.

​By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent
It is 8:05, Pacific Standard Time and the TV is rehashing the morning news. I’ve already boogie-boarded the Net for the past couple of hours reading the wires, the tubes, The Times; NY and LA, the blogs and of course the RSS feeds I have from all cannabis-related well-springs.
While the real news should be all about what’s happening in the Mideast (over there) or the Midwest (over here), but as of a minute ago, some guy in New York on Good Morning, America has just pulled out this tease before going to commercial. “Up next, the Wal-Mart of Weed, to open today in Sacramento, California.”

Photo: Daily Mail
Retail hydroponics store weGrow is being called the “Walmart of weed.” It will open Saturday in Sacramento, selling everything needed to grow cannabis except the seeds.

​The Walmart of weed is coming to Sacramento, California on Saturday.

Far from denying the ambitious title, weGrow, a huge hydroponics store marketing itself as a retail outlet for people cultivating marijuana for medical use, is embracing it, reports Peter Hecht at The Sacramento Bee.
The 10,000-square-foot weGrow store, at 1537 Fulton Avenue in Sacramento, is the first national franchise for a company billing itself as a “supply and training destination” for legal cannabis cultivators.
The business started in Oakland last year as a warehouse store called iGrow. It doesn’t sell any marijuana — but it does have marijuana plants there for “display purposes only,” reports the U.K. Daily Mail.

Photo: Katy Batdorff/The Grand Rapids Press
Cancer patient Joseph Casias was Walmart’s Employee of the Year — but they fired him after learning he uses medical marijuana with a doctor’s authorization.

​Walmart’s former Employee of the Year won’t be going back to work there. A federal judge on Friday ruled that Michigan’s medical marijuana law protects legal users from arrest, but doesn’t protect them from employers’ policies which ban pot use.

Joseph Casias, who has an inoperable brain tumor, was fired by the Battle Creek Walmart after he failed a routine drug test following a workplace injury, reports John Agar at The Grand Rapids Press.
“The fundamental problem with (Casias’) case is that the (medical marijuana law) does not regulate private employment,” U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker wrote in his 20-page opinion.
“Rather, the Act provides a potential defense to criminal prosecution or other adverse action by the state… All the (law) does is give some people limited protection from prosecution by the state, or from other adverse state action in carefully limited medical marijuana situations,” the federal judge ruled.
According to Judge Jonker, the law “says nothing about private employment rights. Nowhere does the (law) state that the statue regulates private employment, that private employees are protected from disciplinary action should they use medical marijuana, or that private employers must accommodate the use of medical marijuana outside the workplace.”

Graphic: Reality Catcher

​Joseph Casias said on Tuesday that it was unfair of WalMart to fire him for legally using marijuana to treat his cancer pain.

With the backing of state and national branches of the American Civil Liberties Union and his attorney, Daniel Grow, Casias said he filed a lawsuit Tuesday morning in Calhoun County Circuit Court against WalMart Stores Inc for wrongful termination last November, reports the Battle Creek Enquirer.
​​The 30-year-old Battle Creek, Mich, cancer patient had undergone a routine drug screening after hurting his knee on the job last year. The test showed that Casias had marijuana in his system and he was fired, even though he is registered as a legal medical marijuana patient in Michigan.

Graphic: pyrello3000

​The nation’s largest marijuana policy reform organization on Tuesday joined Toke of the Town in calling upon shoppers across the country to boycott WalMart Stores, Inc. The boycott is to protest the unjust and possibly unlawful firing of a medical marijuana patient and sinus cancer survivor who suffers from an inoperable brain tumor.

Joseph Casias, 29, legaly uses medical marijuana to alleviate the pain resulting from his cancer, which is in remission.
The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) is asking shoppers to demand WalMart abandon its discriminatory policy of firing employees who are legal medical marijuana patients under state law.
After dutifully working at a WalMart in Battle Creek, Michigan, for five years, Casias was suddenly terminated because he tested positive for marijuana during a drug screening administered after he sprained a knee on the job.

Photo: WOOD-TV
The Michigan Medical Marijuana Association organized a rally Sunday, March 14, 2010 at the Battle Creek WalMart parking lot.

​A rally was held Sunday in support of Joseph Casias, a former employee of the year and registered medical marijuana patient battling cancer who was recently fired from his job at WalMart for using the doctor-approved herb, reports Dani Carlson at WOOD TV.

More than 100 people turned out for the demonstration to support Casias, a five-year employee at the Battle Creek, Michigan WalMart store. He was terminated after testing positive for medical marijuana.
Casias has a doctor’s recommendation for cannabis and is a legal, card-carrying medical marijuana patient.
Casias, who uses marijuana for pain from sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor, said he shouldn’t have been fired in a state where medical marijuana is legal.

Graphic: disinformation
It’s time for WalMart — and other corporate chains — to join the 21st Century.

​WalMart pulled a major bonehead move this week when it sacked a cancer patient — a former Associate of the Year — for following his doctor’s advice and using medical marijuana, which is perfectly legal in Michigan. As a direct result, medical marijuana advocates are now organizing a nationwide boycott of the retail giant.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company, notorious for its corporate stance of social conservatism, looked like a big, dumb, lumbering, heartless beast. But WalMart still hasn’t budged, and is completely unapologetic about firing Joseph Casias, who suffers from sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor.
The wave of revulsion and outrage over WalMart’s treatment of Casias is growing exponentially as more people learn what was done — and with 80 percent of the American public supporting medical marijuana, the results of a boycott could be substantial.

Graphic: Reality Catcher

​Despite medical marijuana being legal in Michigan, WalMart has fired a cancer patient and former employee of the year who tested positive for the drug, which was recommended by his doctor.

“I was terminated because I failed a drug screening,” ex-WalMart employee Joseph Casias told WZZM-13.
In 2008, Casias was Associate of the Year at the WalMart store in Battle Creek, Mich., despite suffering from sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor.
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