A butcher with nearly four decades of service at a meat works has been awarded $25,000 in compensation and ordered to be permanently reinstated after being summarily dismissed for failing a second workplace drug test while using prescribed medicinal cannabis.
Paul Brendon Brown was dismissed from Alliance Group Limited’s Mataura plant in January 2026 after a targeted drug test returned a non-negative result for THC.
The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) found Alliance unjustifiably dismissed Brown, determining his actions did not constitute serious misconduct and that the employer rushed the dismissal process without properly considering his individual circumstances or alternative pain management options.
Brown, an “A grade slaughterer” who began working at the Mataura plant in 1987, had been prescribed medicinal cannabis oil by his GP in late 2022 to treat chronic pain and sleep issues stemming from a severe 2016 workplace injury where he was crushed between two cattle.
