Comer, a main partner at the law firm, built his career in general defense litigation with a focus on employment law, workers’ compensation and contract disputes, and is an Ohio Supreme Court trained mediator for a wide range of legal disputes, according to Doc Hayes, council chairman, who introduced Comer.
There are four states in the U.S. where marijuana is still illegal, including Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas and South Carolina, Comer said. Every other state has some form of legality, such as CBD only, which stands for cannabidiol and is a non-impairing compound found in cannabis.
Other states decriminalized marijuana, meaning they’re not enforcing criminal laws for it, and other states have a mix of medical marijuana use and decriminalization, medical-only marijuana use or complete legalization (at the state level).
“It has become a pervasive part of our culture...It is here to stay. You as safety professionals and HR professionals have to deal with it. You have to manage it. You have to prepare for it,” Comer said.
Medical marijuana
Ohio legalized medical marijuana and licensed cultivators, testing labs, processors and dispensaries in 2016. Citizens with a qualified condition must have a card issued by a state-registered doctor to buy from a licensed dispensary. The law also prohibits smoking medical marijuana and only allows medical users to take it orally via oil or edible or to use it via some type of ointment.
The qualified conditions include HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, cachexia, cancer, CTE, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy or another seizure disorder, fibromyalgia, glaucoma, hepatitis C, IBD, MS, chronic/severe or intractable pain, Parkinson’s disease, PTSD, sickle cell anemia, spinal cord disease or injury, Tourette’s syndrome, traumatic brain injury or ulcerative colitis.
Medical marijuana in the workplace
Although there are qualified conditions for a medical marijuana card, Comer said employers still have the authority to continue managing their employees just as they have before the 2016 law.
It’s legal for employers to fire employees for the use of medical marijuana in violation of their own drug-free or zero-tolerance policies, he said, including that medical marijuana users are not entitled to unemployment benefits and they can be fired for possession or distribution of medical marijuana.
Under Ohio law, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Comer said medical marijuana doesn’t require accommodation and employers don’t have to accommodate for medical marijuana use as a disability. However, if an employee uses medical marijuana for a condition covered by the ADA, the employer may be required to accommodate for that condition in another way.
“It’s not a violation of Ohio’s discrimination statutes if you terminated somebody (because of medical marijuana),” he said.
The effects of marijuana have been studied, he said, but the impact on workplace safety is harder to study as there is typically not enough data for employers to establish patterns, according to Comer.
Impairment vs. detection
Marijuana can stay in someone’s system for up to 30 days, but it doesn’t mean that person is impaired, Comer said.
“We have this problem between impairment and detection with marijuana that you don’t necessarily have with alcohol,” he said. “You might still have detection but not have impairment.”
For example, a 2024 Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) study found a 10% increase in workplace incidents for workers who tested positive from marijuana between ages 20 and 34. But an Institute of Work and Health study found that off-job use did not correlate with an increased risk because impairment wasn’t there.
Recreational marijuana in the workplace
Ohio voted in November 2023 to legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older, including cultivation, processing, sale, purchase, possession and home growth.
People who are 21 and over can buy and possess up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis flower and 15 grams of extract. They can also have up to six plants in their house, but no more than 12 cannabis plants per residence where two or more people over 21 live.
Although recreational marijuana is legal, employers still have the right to prohibit its use, possession, sale, purchase, transfer and distribution, and businesses retain the right to terminate employees who violate those rules.
If you terminate for a positive drug test, recreational or medical, it’ll show as a just cause, Comer said.
“You as employers, you as safety people, you as human resource managers — you are in no worse position than you were before these laws. In fact, you’re in an enhanced position in terms of policy making and enforcement with regard to drug use,” he said. “If you thought that this tied your hands behind your back, these laws, they do not.”
There are three things that can be done to make workplaces safer and prevent incidents related to the rise in marijuana use, according to Comer.
They are: have a written policy that prohibits it in some form; train and provide drug awareness to employees, managers and supervisors on how to detect impairment; and enforce the policy, he said.
“You certainly can’t control (employees) and when they go home and what folks do, but you certainly can have policies that monitor it and manage it in the workplace,” he said.
By the numbers:
Medical marijuana:
By 2024, Ohio had 410,565 registered medical marijuana users, nearly 4.5% of Ohio’s adult population, according to Ohio Cannabis Information.
The average medical cannabis patient spends between $90 and $100 each month from the 120 medical cannabis dispensaries in the state. Those dispensaries make around $36 million in sales each month from the roughly 360,000 to 400,000 monthly transactions.
As of 2025, medical cannabis is Ohio has a 5.75% sales tax.
Recreational marijuana:
In almost a year, from Aug. 6, 2024 to Aug. 2, 2025, there has been $702,587,948 in total product sales; 9,779,734 receipts; 11,805,532 units of manufactured products; and 109,706 pounds of plant material sold, Attorney Randall Comer said, according to the Ohio Department of Commerce.
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