What If You Fail a Drug Test With a Medical Card in Arkansas?

If you fail a drug test with a medical card in Arkansas, you are not automatically fired, but the protection your card provides is narrower than most patients expect. Amendment 98 blocks an employer from penalizing you based solely on your registered patient status or on a positive marijuana test by itself, yet it leaves employers free to enforce drug-free workplace policies and to act whenever they have any additional evidence that you used or were impaired at work.¹ Whether you keep your job depends on your role, what your employer can document beyond the test, and whether federal rules reach your position.

What Your Card Actually Protects

Amendment 98 gives registered qualifying patients and designated caregivers two workplace protections. An employer cannot fire you, refuse to hire you, or otherwise penalize you simply because you hold a card. And a positive marijuana test, standing alone, is not enough to justify adverse action unless the employer also has evidence that you used marijuana at work or were impaired during work hours.¹

The limits are just as firm. The amendment does not require your employer to let you use, carry, or transport marijuana at the workplace, and it does not stop your employer from disciplining you for being impaired while performing your job.² If honoring the protections would force your employer to violate federal law or jeopardize federal funding or licensing, they give way entirely.¹

When Your Employer Can Still Fire You

For employees outside safety-sensitive roles, the question that decides your job is whether the employer has a “good faith belief” you used marijuana at work or were impaired during work hours. A positive test alone cannot support that belief.² What tips the balance is corroborating evidence: witness statements, observable signs like slurred speech or poor coordination, the smell of marijuana, an admission, or documented performance problems on a specific shift.

This is where many cardholders get tripped up. THC metabolites stay in your system for weeks, so a positive test may reflect use from days ago on your own time. The good faith belief standard does not require proof of exactly when you used. It only requires enough supporting evidence for the employer to reasonably conclude you were using or impaired at work, which is a lower bar than many patients assume.

Arkansas law also expressly allows employers to establish and enforce drug-free workplace policies, including testing programs, and to fire or refuse to hire anyone who violates such a policy, cardholder or not.¹ A written policy you signed, combined with corroborating evidence of impairment, puts an employer on strong legal footing to act even against a registered patient.

Jobs Where Your Card Won’t Help

Amendment 98 lets employers designate positions as safety-sensitive in writing, and once a position carries that designation the protections largely fall away. An employer can exclude a registered patient from a safety-sensitive role based on a good faith belief of current marijuana use, and the rule that a positive test cannot be the sole evidence loses much of its force. The amendment identifies categories that qualify, including operating equipment or machinery whose malfunction could cause injury or property damage, caring for children or elderly, sick, or disabled people, handling hazardous materials or controlled substances, driving a motor vehicle, and performing any task that could threaten public safety or the safety of the employee or coworkers.¹

Pay attention to the written-designation requirement. The employer must have identified the position as safety-sensitive before taking action. If your job description or offer letter contains no such designation, the exception may not reach your role even if the work seems to fit one of the listed categories.

DOT-Regulated Positions

Employees subject to Department of Transportation drug testing face a stricter rule. The DOT treats marijuana use as unacceptable for any safety-sensitive transportation employee regardless of state medical marijuana laws, which covers truck drivers, pilots, school bus drivers, train engineers, subway operators, aircraft maintenance personnel, ship captains, pipeline emergency response workers, and others covered by 49 CFR Part 40. A medical card provides no protection, and no Medical Review Officer can accept a state authorization as a valid excuse for a positive result. As of December 2025, the DOT confirmed that federal rescheduling will not change testing requirements until the process is fully complete.³

Federal Employment

Federal employees working in Arkansas get no protection from Amendment 98. Executive Order 12564 requires federal employees to abstain from illegal drug use on and off duty, and because marijuana remains a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law, federal agencies test for it and treat a positive as a violation regardless of any state card.⁴ The amendment itself acknowledges the gap by stating that its protections do not require any employer to violate federal law or risk federal benefits.¹

If You Were Hurt at Work and Tested Positive

This is where a failed test gets genuinely expensive, and most cardholders have no warning it’s coming. If you are injured on the job and test positive for marijuana, Arkansas workers’ compensation law creates a rebuttable presumption that your injury was substantially caused by drug use. The burden shifts to you to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that marijuana did not substantially cause the accident.⁵

The statute refers to “illegal drugs” without carving out an exception for medical marijuana patients. Because marijuana remains federally illegal, the presumption can trigger even when you hold a valid card and used marijuana days before the injury on your own time. If you cannot overcome the presumption, your workers’ compensation claim gets denied entirely. Arkansas law also deems every employee to have impliedly consented to reasonable drug testing for these purposes, so refusing a post-accident test does not avoid the problem.⁵ Overcoming the presumption generally requires expert testimony or other evidence disconnecting your use from the accident, which is difficult and expensive to establish.

Can You Collect Unemployment?

Losing your job over a failed test can also disqualify you from unemployment benefits. Under Arkansas law, an employee fired after testing positive on a DOT-qualified drug screen conducted under the employer’s written drug policy is disqualified. Even without a DOT-qualified test, being fired for reporting to work under the influence of a controlled substance, or for willfully violating your employer’s written rules, qualifies as misconduct connected with the work and triggers the same disqualification.⁶

The disqualification is not permanent. You become eligible again after earning wages in two separate calendar quarters totaling at least 35 times your weekly benefit amount, meaning you need to find new work and earn enough to clear that threshold before any benefits start.⁶

If You Think the Firing Was Illegal

Amendment 98 explicitly states that it does not create a private right of action against employers.¹ If you believe your employer violated the anti-discrimination protections, you cannot sue them under the amendment itself. That does not leave you with zero options. Other state or federal employment laws may provide a path depending on the circumstances, such as wrongful termination or disability discrimination claims under separate statutes. But because the amendment carries no enforcement mechanism of its own, the practical protection is weaker than the text suggests, so document everything, including your written policy, the test, any statements from supervisors, and the sequence of events, if you believe you are being penalized solely for your cardholder status.

1
Arkansas Department of Health. Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment 98 Sections 1-8
2
FindLaw. Arkansas Constitution Amendment 98 Section 3 – Protections for the Medical Use of Marijuana
3
U.S. Department of Transportation. DOT’s Notice on Testing for Marijuana
4
U.S. Department of State. Drug-Free Workplace Program
5
Justia Law. Arkansas Code Title 11 Section 11-9-102 – Definitions
6
Justia Law. Arkansas Code Title 11 Section 11-10-514 – Disqualification – Discharge for Misconduct