Pretoria - The tendency by a former employee of Barloworld Equipment to roll a joint after work, despite her company’s zero-tolerance policy on drugs, cost her dearly.
The company had fired her, and the Labour Court, in a recent ruling, agreed that the dismissal was fair.
Bernadette Enever was dismissed on April 30, 2020, after she had worked for the company for a number of years as a category analyst, in an office or desk position.
While the company had a zero-tolerance policy for the use of drugs and often tested its employees for this, Enever was not about to give up on her use of cannabis after hours.
She maintained that her position at the company did not constitute a safety-sensitive job in that she was neither required to operate heavy machinery nor to drive any of the company’s vehicles.
Enever testified that some time ago, she suffered severe and constant migraine, as well as anxiety spells, which affected her general well-being as well as interfering with her sleeping.
As a result, she was prescribed medication by her general practitioner for pain and anxiety, which proved to have some side effects for her.
She was earlier prescribed pharmaceutical drugs which required daily consumption of about 10 pills (including sleeping tablets) to ease pain and assist in falling asleep.
Following the Constitutional Court case which decriminalised the use of cannabis, especially in private spaces, she gradually moved away from consuming pharmaceutical pills.
Enever swopped these for cannabis oil and smoking rolled cannabis as an alternative to achieve the same results.
She said it took her about three months to reduce her daily consumption of pills to four, until she completely weaned off the pills so she could continue with the use of cannabis. The transition period took her between six and 12 months.
According to Enever, she also used cannabis recreationally by smoking rolled joints every evening to assist with insomnia and anxiety. She said this also improved her bodily health and outlook, and her spirituality had improved as a result.
She testified that smoking cannabis makes her feel closer to God, which also assists in her quest to address internal struggles.
The company, on the other hand, said it had an alcohol and substance policy, which Enever was aware of, and which required the employees to undergo medical tests.
In January 2020, she was subjected to a medical test in the form of a urine test. The test came back positive for cannabis detected in her system.
Enever was told that she was unfit to continue working and directed to immediately leave the premises.
She was immediately placed on a seven-day “cleaning up process”, which entailed that the test would be repeated on a weekly basis until she tested negative.
The problem was not that she smoked her weed at work; she smoked after work, but it was still detected in her body when she returned to work.
When she again tested positive after the “cleaning-up” period, she was fired following a disciplinary hearing.
During mitigation, Enever said that she did not plead guilty to being intoxicated or impaired at work. She also indicated that she was never “stoned” at work, and reiterated the importance of smoking rolled-up cannabis every evening as well as daily use of CBD oil to relax and maintain her improved medical benefits, which reduced her pharmaceutical drug dependency.
But she was nevertheless fired, as it was reasoned that as she refused to give up her weed, it was clear that she would always test positive.
Enever’s hope to get her job back by turning to the Labour Court also went up in smoke. Acting Judge MM Ntsoane said she was not convinced that Enever used cannabis for medical reasons, as she never submitted her doctor’s opinion in this regard.
The judge said Enever also never discussed this with her employer and only raised her medical condition after she was caught.
The judge questioned Enever’s medical defence and said if she used CBD oil for her ailments, why did she then also have to smoke a joint for recreational purposes?
“Even if I were to accept the medicinal argument, which I don’t, then why should I accept the recreational consumption, which seems to denote that she simply consumes the drug for fun?
“The applicant’s argument in this regard must fail, especially on the recreational part, which diminishes her grounds as it is clearly unsustainable,” the judge said.
Pretoria News