Flexistentialist
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2002
- Messages
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Addicts lose 'disabled' tag
DARRELL GILES political editor
02nov03
THE Federal Government will move to close a legal loophole which allows drug dependency to be recognised as a legitimate disability.
Prime Minister John Howard will ask Attorney-General Philip Ruddock to amend the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, largely to give employers some direction.
The amendment will protect people if they decide not to employ a person on the grounds that he or she might be a drug addict.
The move follows a Federal Court ruling that drug addiction was a disability, which attracted the protection of disability discrimination provisions of the law.
In November 2000, Justice Catherine Branson overruled a Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission decision against former heroin addict Wayne Marsden, who complained of discrimination after being kicked out of a club in 1996.
The Federal Court determined that although Mr Marsden was receiving methadone treatment, he was still "disabled" as a result of his heroin addiction.
A spokesman for Mr Howard said the amendment would "give certainty to bosses".
So what does everyone think? Is drug dependency a legitimate disability?
I don't think employers should have the right to discriminate against someone on methadone. If this is allowed, why can't someone on any other medcation be discriminated aginst too?
Oh, thats right. It's because someone using methadone is obviously a lying, thieving, dirty junky 8) [/sarcasm]