Home / Case database
14 decisions · updated as they publish · verified against decision texts
The medical cannabis & workplace testing case database
Last verified:
Every consequential Fair Work Commission and court decision on cannabis, workplace drug testing and dismissal — organised into the three lines that actually explain the law: the Full Bench pillars, the medical era, and the testing-procedure disputes. One plain-English lesson per case. Entries marked “summary in review” are being verified against the published decision before the full summary ships.
Line one: the Full Bench pillars (what every modern case cites)
| Decision | Facts in one line | Outcome | The principle it stands for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harbour City Ferries v Toms [2014] FWCFB 6249; appeal dismissed, Toms v Harbour City Ferries [2015] FCAFC 35 | Ferry master smoked cannabis for shoulder pain on a night off, was called in next day, tested positive after a minor berthing accident. No evidence of impairment; accident unrelated to the drug. | Dismissal stood | The foundation stone: breach of a clear safety policy is serious misconduct in itself — the employer “never wants to have the discussion” about whether drugs contributed. Impairment evidence is beside the point. Note the detail: this was self-medication for pain, a decade before prescriptions were mainstream. |
| Sharp v BCS Infrastructure Support [2015] FWCFB 1033 | Aviation maintenance worker, reading far above the cannabinoid cut-off in safety-sensitive aviation activities. | Dismissal upheld | Industry regimes harden everything: where a regulated safety scheme sits above the employer policy, strict enforcement is reasonable even where impairment can’t be established either way. |
| Sydney Trains v Hilder [2020] FWCFB 1373 | Rail worker, one-off cannabis use at a social gathering, failed a random test at work the next morning. | Reinstatement overturned | The “breach simpliciter” case: attending work above the cut-off breaches the policy unconditionally — the worker’s honest belief that enough time had passed did not save him. |
| Sydney Trains v Goodsell [2024] FWCFB 401 (first instance: Goodsell v Sydney Trains [2023] FWC 3209) | Rail worker, positive cannabis test; first instance weighed the employer’s failure to explain its zero-tolerance stance and found for the worker. | Summary in review | The live frontier: how far a valid reason can be outweighed by process failures and harshness. Full Bench treatment being verified before we publish the holding. |
Line two: the medical era (lawful prescription, same policies)
| Decision | Industry | Outcome | One-line lesson |
|---|---|---|---|
| Haigh v Platinum Blasting Services [2023] FWC 2465 | Mining explosives worker disclosed a cannabis prescription, switched medication, then quietly resumed use. The FWC found the safety-regulator finding outweighed the medical evidence the worker relied on. | Dismissal upheld | Disclosed once, switched medication, quietly resumed cannabis — disclosure is an ongoing duty, not a form filled at induction. |
| Gauci v DP World Brisbane [2024] FWC 2351 | Stevedore at DP World Brisbane tested positive for THC. The policy set cut-off levels, not impairment measures, and the Commission held the employer was entitled to enforce the cut-offs as written. | Dismissal upheld | The policy set cut-offs, not impairment measures — and the Commission noted that had he disclosed, doctor and employer could have agreed working arrangements. The safety valve existed; he never pulled it. |
| Mills v Glamorgan Spring Bay Council [2025] FWC 116 | Council machinery operator declared the cannabis but not the THC. Why partial disclosure is non-disclosure, and why a late offer to change medication came too late to save the dismissal. | Dismissal upheld | Partial disclosure is non-disclosure: he declared the cannabis, not the THC. A late offer to change medication couldn’t cure the breach. |
| Witherden v DP World Sydney [2025] FWC 294 | Stevedore at DP World Sydney successfully argued the distinction between a valid reason and a fair process. The FWC found the dismissal procedurally unfair despite a valid reason for termination. | Summary in review | Argued the distinction between a valid reason and a fair dismissal, with long unblemished service in the balance — the harshness frontier applied to a testing case. |
| Wight v Queensland Rail (2025) | Rail shunting worker self-medicated with cannabis without disclosure. The positive test result was found first, and the explanation arrived far too late for a safety-critical role. | Summary in review | Self-medication without disclosure in a rail-safety role after extended leave. |
| Parks v WorkPac (U2025/1247, Batchfire mine) | Coal mining worker at Batchfire mine used site self-test kits aligned to the superseded 25 ng/mL standard while formal testing used the 2019 standard's 15 ng/mL cut-off — a worker could pass his own test and fail the real one. | Summary in review | Site self-test kits aligned to the superseded 25 ng/mL standard while formal testing used 2019’s 15 ng/mL — a worker could pass his own kit and fail the program’s. |
| Brew v Downer EDI Works Pty Ltd [2026] FWC (Deputy President Slevin, 23 March 2026) | Area supervisor with 27 years' service dismissed after testing positive for THC metabolites. Employer relied on 'cardinal rule 10' of its drug policy. | Reinstated | The Commission found the dismissal harsh and unfair and ordered reinstatement within 14 days plus compensation for lost wages, rejecting the employer's cardinal-rule argument. Read alongside Toms: a clear policy breach is still serious, but length of service and proportionality can outweigh it. Summary taken from news coverage and not yet checked against the decision text. |
Line three: testing-procedure disputes (where evidence is made or destroyed)
| Decision | What was fought over | Outcome | One-line lesson |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pitts v AGC Industries [2013] FWCFB 9196 | Urine screening and retest windows after non-negative results | Process scrutinised | Retest timeframes and how workers “come clean” matter — testing programs are judged as processes, not single results. |
| Hancock v DP World Brisbane [2022] FWCFB 142 | Chain of custody and the policy’s dismissal provision | Valid reason upheld | Documented chain of custody plus the worker’s own admission defeated the process challenge. |
| Cunningham v Downer EDI Mining [2015] FWC 318 | Methylamphetamine at four times the cut-off, mine dump truck | Dismissal upheld | The framework is substance-agnostic: the same policy machinery decides cannabis, meth and everything else. |
The principles, extracted
- Breach simpliciter. Since Toms and confirmed in Hilder: exceeding the cut-off at work is itself serious misconduct. No impairment evidence needed; none accepted in mitigation.
- Disclosure is the medical era’s battleground. Every upheld medical-era dismissal turns on non-disclosure, partial disclosure, or lapsed disclosure — not the prescription.
- The safety valve is real but must be used early. Gauci shows the path the worker skipped: disclose, involve the doctor, agree arrangements. That path is also what makes strict policies defensible for employers.
- Harshness is the worker’s remaining ground. Service, record, honesty and process failures still swing outcomes at the margin — the frontier currently being tested in the Sydney Trains line and Witherden.
- Procedure is evidence. Chain of custody, standards matching and confirmatory testing decide cases before the merits are reached (Hancock, Parks).
Know a decision we’ve missed? Email the citation — the database is updated
as decisions publish, and every summary is verified against the published text before its chip goes
green or red.
Employers: the Policy Pack applies all of this Workers: the Rights Kit is the survival manual
Download the database
The 9 verified entries are published as a machine-readable dataset under CC BY 4.0. Reuse it, quote it, build on it — the only condition is attribution. Two formats, same content: JSON for code, CSV for spreadsheets. Entries still in review are deliberately excluded from both files: they have not yet been checked against the decision text, and we are not going to hand anyone our unverified work to publish under our name.
Download the dataset (JSON, 9 verified entries) Download the dataset (CSV, spreadsheet-friendly)
Cite as: Medical Cannabis at Work, “Australian FWC medical cannabis & workplace testing case database”, medicalcannabisatwork.com.au/tracker/, CC BY 4.0.
Not legal advice. This page explains the law in general terms as at the “last verified” date shown. If you have been stood down or dismissed, or need to make a decision that depends on the law, speak to an employment lawyer — small differences in circumstances change outcomes, and the 21-day unfair dismissal deadline does not wait.