Man with cancer allegedly suspended from his job for using medical marijuana

Maggie Parker
When marijuana showed up on a drug test for work, Craig Miller’s employer told him to “stop taking your medicine or lose your job.” (Photo: AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
When marijuana showed up on a drug test for work, Craig Miller’s employer told him to “stop taking your medicine or lose your job.” (Photo: AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

A man battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma was allegedly suspended from work when his medical marijuana showed up on a drug test.

Craig Miller, from Illinois, was issued a medical marijuana card in June 2018. He was prescribed marijuana to combat the chronic pain and loss of appetite caused by the other medications he has to take. When marijuana showed up on a drug test at work, Miller’s employer, Spartan Light Metal Products, suspended him and told him to “stop taking your medicine or lose your job,” Miller wrote on a GoFundMe page he recently set up.

Miller was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer in the lymphatic system, in 2015. When he started treatment he was 230 pounds. “At one point in my treatment my weight dropped below 180 lbs,” Miller wrote. “I was prescribed Dronabinol (synthetic THC) to help with my appetite so I could put on weight. In Jan 2017 the HR department at work was informed in writing that I would show positive for THC on drug tests.”

Craig Miller (Photo: GoFundMe)
Craig Miller (Photo: GoFundMe)

Unfortunately, the Dronabinol didn’t do the trick, and that’s when his doctor introduced him to medical marijuana. “I started taking my new medicine, and over the next few weeks I noticed a marked improvement,” he wrote. “The biggest was that when I did the exercises given to me by a physical therapist actually started doing some good, the knot under my shoulder blade released, I was able to turn my head, and it didn’t feel as if my arm was being ripped off, I also started regaining normal feeling in my right foot.” Plus it helped with vision problems he’d developed before he was diagnosed. “For the first time in years things where starting to feel right.”

Unfortunately, that all changed when he was suspended from work.

In order to get back to work, the company asked Miller’s doctor to fill out a form about his need for medical marijuana. But the doctor only sent back a letter stating, “Mr. Miller has a qualifying condition which I have recommended to the Illinois Department of Health to issue his cannabis card.” While the letter confirmed that Miller had been “educated on the medication action, dose and side effects and time of day to administer,” it was not enough for the business. “I kept hearing the whole time: do whatever it takes to get better and then when I do they haven’t even talked to me,” Miller told a local FOX affiliate. He ensured FOX that he never takes his medicine right before or during work. “I work second shift so I get up early in the morning, I usually take a little when I get up, to allow me to start moving, do a little bit around the house and a couple hours later go to work,” he explained. “And then when I got home, I would do a little more so I could sleep.”

Regardless, the company has Miller jumping through hoops to get back to work. Most recently, they demanded he find a third doctor “to agree,” he wrote Friday. “Basically creating an environment that would likely cause me to quit, but they are not firing me.”

He launched the GoFundMe page in the beginning of November to help raise funds to pay his mortgage and medical bills, since he doesn’t know the status of his job. “I am in limbo. I do not know if I am still suspended, but I do know I am at the end on my financial rope,” he explained. “The next mortgage payment will go unpaid.”

Asking for money, he wrote, is the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, “even harder than fighting cancer.”

But he’ll do what he has to in order to stay afloat while he fights to get his job back. “I keep getting asked if this job is worth it, and to me yes,” he wrote. “It gives me the sense of accomplishment everyday working on equipment that really interests me. I really like the people that are on the floor and that I interact with on a daily basis. Getting engrossed in troubleshooting machine problems or working on projects help keep me from worrying about everything else and is a great mental escape.”

In a statement to FOX, the Spartan Light Metal Products said, “it is our practice to act at all times in a way that is consistent with our goal of providing a safe work environment for all of our employees. We are confident that our policies and actions are appropriate and consistent with those values.”

Miller has filed an official complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights. “[I’ve] been running in so many circles, I’ve almost come to the point of giving up a couple times,” he told FOX.

But he’s not giving up yet. “I have had to stand firm against stigma, lies, insults, and most recently a physical assault, all because I am trying to stand up for basic Human Rights,” he wrote on his GoFundMe page. “Whatever happened to basic human decency?”

Miller and his employer have not responded to Yahoo’s request for comment.

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