Answer to Question of the Week #3
Thanks for your participation! Here’s the question . . .
One employee notifies you that he is on acid and that he intends to cannibalize the entire HR staff at lunch. A second employee tells you that he has to leave work early today because he used to be addicted to heroin and is having flashbacks to a 1977 Jethro Tull concert. A third employee tells you that he is on methadone and that he “sometimes feels like setting fire to himself and everyone around him.”
Here are your responses . . .
a. The first employee is not protected by the ADA because it does not cover current users of illegal drugs (5%)
b. The second employee — as a recovering addict — may be covered under the ADA (6%)
c. If the third employee’s drug use is legal and prescribed, he may be covered by the ADA, buy may be terminated if he poses a “direct threat” (15%)
d. All of the above (61%)
e. None of the above (13%)
The correct answer is “all of the above.” Current users of illegal drugs are not protected by the ADA (neither are cannibals). Recovering addicts may be protected and thus may need to be accommodated (but playing Jethro Tull in the workplace clearly would pose an undue hardship that need not be tolerated). Prescribed drug use may be covered by the ADA but the employee could be terminated if the narrow “direct threat” exception can be established. This is an exceptionally high burden requiring analysis of (1) the duration of the risk, (2) the nature and severity of the potential harm, (3) the likelihood that the potential harm will occur and (4) the imminence of the potential harm.
