BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Scott Martin’s dream job was to be a firefighter at his hometown station across the nook from the place he went to church.
1st Platoon Truck 14 at Bailey Avenue and Doat Avenue. The East Facet Categorical.
Martin graduated from Depew Excessive College and joined the Air Drive, the place he educated to be a specialised firefighter and emergency medical technician. He served a seven-month “traumatic” project in an Iraq hot-zone earlier than being deployed to Afghanistan to a firebase close to the Province of Khost as a part of the Operation Enduring Freedom.
He returned to the Buffalo space in 2005, labored at Pepsi Co., earlier than he determined to comply with his dream. He mentioned that regardless of his nervousness and post-traumatic stress dysfunction from serving at struggle, he felt bodily and mentally ready to renew his position as a firefighter and EMT, a path blazed by previous generations in his household.
In 2009, Martin joined the Buffalo Fireplace Division, labored at completely different stations, earlier than he amassed sufficient seniority to land his dream job on the 1st Platoon Truck 14.
However he mentioned by late final 12 months his life received turned the wrong way up in a dispute with the town and hearth division.
“I misplaced my dream job, and the way in which it occurred was horrible,” Martin mentioned.
On February 23, the Buffalo Fireplace Division terminated Martin after a urine pattern got here again constructive for marijuana metabolites in violation of their collective bargaining settlement.
However right here’s the rub: Martin is a medical marijuana affected person, protected by the state’s Compassionate Care Act. He’s medically prescribed marijuana within the type of vapes and capsules to cut back ache, nervousness and PTSD, which the Act considers to be disabilities.
Martin has since filed a grievance by his union, an Article 78 and a civil lawsuit to overturn the town’s resolution, all of that are pending.
Whichever aspect prevails might dictate how authorities and personal employers work with unions to amend collective bargaining agreements to account for the medical use of marijuana, and even leisure use made authorized this 12 months.
“To my information, it’s the one considered one of its form happening in New York State,” mentioned Martin’s legal professional, Dave Holland. “I convey it extra as a harbinger of what’s the paradigm shift I hold speaking about: What’s the change in our social appreciation for this drugs that must be introduced into consideration in contracts?”
Holland argues that Martin’s protected by the Compassionate Care Act. He mentioned collective bargaining agreements – the contracts between unions and employers- can’t snatch these rights away from people who find themselves legally prescribed medical marijuana.
“He’s been completely eradicated from being a productive citizen in the way in which he was earlier than and he’s being discriminated towards in our opinion and demonized for being a medical hashish affected person, which in truth has proved itself to be extraordinarily priceless,” Holland mentioned.
The Metropolis of Buffalo declined to touch upon the pending litigation.
A metropolis spokesman wrote in an announcement that, “The Metropolis of Buffalo, like each municipality, is grappling with modifications in legal guidelines relating to hashish use.”
Martin’s background
Martin’s 4 years of navy service took a toll on him.
He was subjected to rocket and terrorist assaults whereas at a firebase in Afghanistan throughout Operation Enduring Freedom. He mentioned he witnessed “unspeakable horrors” throughout fight that end in bouts of melancholy, nervousness, and PTSD.
When Martin returned to New York in 2005, he wanted a while to “come to phrases with what I had skilled and witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
He spent 4 years at Pepsi, the place he drove a forklift and dealt with inside logistics within the warehouse.
Regardless of the trauma that he sustained, his dream of being a Buffalo firefighter at his hometown station burned deep inside him. He mentioned it’s in his blood to render assist to individuals in misery, whether or not it’s from fires, accidents or violence.
By 2009, Martin was comfy to renew firefighting and received employed by the Buffalo Fireplace Division.
Two years later, the collective bargaining settlement between the town and the Buffalo Firefighters Affiliation union resolved numerous points together with establishing the protocol for drug testing and drug remedy for firefighters who check constructive for unlawful substances.
The collective bargaining settlement was amended in 2017, Martin’s legal professional mentioned, however the union and metropolis officers didn’t account for the passage of the Compassion Care Act three years earlier, which instilled rights to medical marijuana sufferers.
In the meantime, Martin continued to wrestle with sleep deprivation and emotional stability attributable to his PTSD.
Firefighting is a harmful job and Martin has sustained severe on-the-job accidents, as effectively.
In his affidavit, Martin recollects being blown out of a window of a burning construction and ricocheting off a close-by constructing. On one other day, he mentioned he was nearly blown off a roof ladder in a wind storm, inflicting injury to his shoulder.
He has extreme, power again ache and he didn’t like how ache tablets made him really feel. The painful epidural photographs in his backbone supplied brief, minimal reduction.
So, a health care provider beneficial he attempt medical marijuana.
In 2018, he formally grew to become a registered medical marijuana affected person.
Lastly, Martin mentioned he was getting reduction. His life modified for the higher. The bouts of hysteria and trauma handed extra shortly and had been a lot simpler to deal with. He not want ache tablets.
By being a medical marijuana affected person, rights had been bestowed to Martin {that a} collective bargaining settlement can’t overrule, his legal professional mentioned.
“He found that hashish labored higher for him,” Holland mentioned. “And that could be a alternative that individuals in preservation of their very own psychological and bodily well being ought to be capable of make when it’s legally obtainable to them. And I feel that’s what’s the frustration about the way in which the hearth division has dealt with this within the Metropolis of Buffalo, just because they felt constrained by the phrases of the contract they negotiated years in the past.”
The way it all went down
On Dec. 22, 2020, Fireplace Commissioner William Renaldo knowledgeable Martin that he was suspended with out pay for testing constructive for marijuana every week earlier for a random work drug check. He was instructed to hunt counseling by the Employment Help Plan, and he must go a return-to-duty drug check earlier than coming again.
Martin mentioned he knowledgeable the deputy earlier than his drug check that he was an authorized medical marijuana person.
“They didn’t know what to do,” Martin mentioned.
“They’d a marketing campaign a few years in the past, you need assistance, go get assist. I went and received assist and my therapist put me down this route,” Martin mentioned. “Supposedly, the state legislation says we’re protected.”
As an alternative, Martin mentioned the town’s dealing with of his state of affairs made him really feel like an addict.
“I set myself as much as go to the counseling they needed me to go to and I did the whole lot they informed me to do and so they had been glad and mentioned I had no drawback,” Martin mentioned. “And the following factor you realize I’m terminated.”
Certainly, on Feb. 23, Renaldo terminated Martin by letter for testing constructive a second time for marijuana metabolites.
Martin’s union filed a grievance in March to get his job again plus again pay or advantages for what he deemed an improper termination. His grievance said that his second check was by no means despatched to, reviewed, or confirmed by a medical assessment officer as required within the collective bargaining settlement. As well as, the check was a part of his medical remedy and will have by no means made it to the hearth division as his return-to-duty check.
If Martin is victorious in his union grievance, he can solely be assured a job with the hearth division and again pay. He’s not assured his identical job at Truck 14 or the seniority he amassed.
In July, Fireplace Commissioner William Renaldo filed an affidavit that said the hearth division’s drug coverage, “is a vital technique of making certain that firefighters who not solely present as much as work, however who should instantly reply to calls to fires and different emergencies, are completely match for responsibility and never underneath the affect of medicine or alcohol.”
“Permitting enforcement solely after a firefighter is impaired or utilizing medicine or alcohol creates a state of affairs the place she or he presents a severe hazard to the residents they’re sworn to serve and their fellow firefighters,” Rinaldo mentioned within the affidavit. “The Metropolis’s method actively prevents and deters this unsafe state of affairs.”
However Martin mentioned he didn’t use his medical marijuana on the job. In truth, he largely used it to assist with sleep and to cut back nervousness attributable to the PTSD.
Article 78 and lawsuit filed
In Could, Martin, by his legal professional, filed an Article 78 towards the Metropolis of Buffalo, to get totally restored to his precise place he occupied at Truck 14 earlier than his termination.
Holland, his legal professional, mentioned that is the one method Martin can restore his rank and seniority with the hearth division at Truck 14. The Buffalo News first covered the Article 78 filing in May.
Town’s argument is that it’s constrained by the phrases of the collective bargaining settlement, which doesn’t account for the Compassionate Care Act’s allowed use of medical marijuana.
Holland mentioned the Act bestowed protections on Martin and others who’re legally prescribed the medication.
“So, that is the place affordable minds differ,” Holland mentioned. “I’d argue they did have choices obtainable to them together with doing nothing as a result of he was legally approved to do that.”
“He did undergo what was required of the collective bargaining settlement with drug counseling and the whole lot else, although he was lawfully utilizing this, and it was decided there was no dependancy situation or risks of his use of hashish as a medical affected person.”
Holland mentioned the town additionally might have cited the anti-discrimination provision inside its personal collective bargaining settlement with the hearth division as a result of the coverage contradicts state legislation. As an alternative, he mentioned the town selected to discriminate towards a medical marijuana affected person who has protected pursuits underneath the Compassionate Care Act, in addition to the civil and human rights legal guidelines.
“He’s lawfully doing it,” Holland mentioned. “And to the extent the collective bargaining settlement mentioned on the contrary, it should give technique to what the state legislation is now.”
By the top of September, Holland filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Courtroom in Erie County looking for damages for illegal discrimination, retaliation, and unlawful termination.
Holland mentioned the lawsuit just isn’t a “good versus evil” story however an actual, very severe query about what the authorized rights are of the town, the union and a medical marijuana affected person.
“The world has modified in each its appreciation of hashish and the way they need to deal with it as drugs,” Holland mentioned. “It’s extra than simply we’re accepting of hashish. We’re now realizing the medical validity of it and all that comes into play because of it, and collective bargaining agreements might must be amended, as effectively.”
In the meantime, Martin is attempting his greatest to maintain it collectively.
Not solely did he lose his dream job, however the metropolis stripped him of his insurance coverage so he can’t even afford to see his therapist.
“They simply performed kick the can,” Martin mentioned of metropolis leaders. “They’re hoping another person goes to determine it out.”
