A police officer in Jersey City, New Jersey was fired for testing positive for THC in a drug test. Last week, that officer was reinstated to his position with back pay.
Norhan Mansour was fired well after Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill to legalize adult-use cannabis in New Jersey in 2021 (with sales beginning in April 2022). After the bill was signed, the Jersey City Police Department clarified that although cannabis was legal, police officers were prohibited from consuming cannabis when off the clock. Mansour was one of four officers who were terminated due to a positive THC test in June 2022, all of whom pursued a lawsuit in April 2023.
Mansour’s attorney Peter Paris explained the hypocrisy of his firing. “What Jersey City is doing is equivalent to terminating police officers because they had a beer off duty,” Paris said in June. “Except it’s worse because there is no constitutional right to drink beer, while there is a constitutional right in New Jersey to consume cannabis.”
According to a Jersey City Times report from June, the case was settled by the New Jersey Civil Service Commission. In favor of reinstating Mansour, Judge Kimberly Moss said that state law “…precludes employers from terminating an employee simply because the employee uses cannabis and precludes employers from terminating their employees solely due to the presence of cannabinoid metabolites in the employee’s system,” Moss said.
At a meeting on August 2, the commission claimed that the city’s argument is “unpersuasive,” adding that the federal ban on cannabis consumers owning firearms doesn’t apply to law enforcement officers. “The Civil Service Commission finds that the action of the appointing authority in removing the appellant was not justified,” the commission stated. “The Commission therefore reverses that action and grants the appeal of Norhan Mansour. The Commission further orders that the appellant be granted back pay, benefits, and seniority from the first date of separation without pay until the day of reinstatement.”
In October 2022, the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission introduced a new directive on drug testing requirements for law enforcement in the state. By February 2023, Attorney General Matthew Platkin had also revised a policy on drug testing for law enforcement. “Due to the complex nature of the law, and in order to provide uniformity in state employee drug testing as it pertains to the use of cannabis, it is necessary to revise this policy,” Platkin stated.
The topic of individuals owning firearms has also been explored in depth over the past few years, both in relation to law enforcement as well as civilian gun ownership under federal law.
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried announced earlier last year that she planned to sue the Biden administration “…to block a federal rule that prohibits medical marijuana users from buying guns or maintaining concealed-carry permits.” Then in Florida last November, a federal judge rejected a lawsuit that aimed to prevent medical cannabis consumers from buying firearms.
In February, a federal court case in Oklahoma ruled that banning cannabis consumers from owning guns is unconstitutional. Brian Vicente of Vicente Sederberg LLP described the case as a significant step forward for cannabis consumer rights.
“For decades, and across various states, medical cannabis patients have been asked to choose between participating in their state’s legal cannabis program or owning a firearm,” Vicente told High Times in February. “This federal court decision secures the rights of adults to both use cannabis and own guns and effectively removes the restriction, and associated stigma, that these adults face. This is part of a broader trend of conservative states embracing marijuana policy, with both Alabama and Mississippi establishing medical cannabis programs in 2022 and Oklahoma poised to legalize cannabis on March 7 of this year.”
Similarly, a federal court decision in Texas in April also found that banning consumers from possessing firearms is unconstitutional as well. “Quite simply, there is no historical tradition of denying individuals their Second Amendment rights based solely (or even partially) on the use of marijuana,” the case filing stated.
