Tory leadership hopeful Ted Morton is taking aim at a recent court decision that found pre-employment drug testing to be a violation of a worker's rights.

While in Fort McMurray yesterday, Morton called the ruling a judicial mistake that needs to be corrected.

"It puts the rights of some guy to smoke pot above the safety of his fellow workers," he told the Sun yesterday in a phone interview. "It's preposterous."

In the decision first handed down May 11, Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Justice Sheilah Martin overturned an earlier Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission ruling and essentially ruled that casual pot smoking is a "disability" and firing someone who tested positive for the active ingredient in marijuana in a pre-employment urine test is discriminatory under Alberta's human rights laws.

Morton called that a bad, judge-made law.

"It is bad law because it creates new rules that cannot be found in the Alberta Human Rights Code," he said. "Drug use, much less illegal drug use, is not even listed as a 'disability' in the act. Nor was it ever intended to be."

Justice Martin ruled that Kellogg Brown & Root - a Fort McMurray company - discriminated against John Chiasson when it fired him from his oilsands job after he tested positive for marijuana in a pre-employment drug test.

Morton said that if he becomes premier, he would amend the act to exclude the use of illegal drugs as a form of disability.

He said part of his leadership campaign is aimed at reducing judge-made and bureaucrat-made law.

Suncor spokesman Brad Bellows said pre-employment drug testing is all about putting safety above everything else.

"We think it's a suitable and reasonable measure to ensure a safe workplace," Bellows told the Sun, adding Suncor employees cannot start work until the test has been completed.

"If you look at the environment of an oilsands plant, it is essential people are fit for duty."

Syncrude spokesman Alain Moore said one important component of the company's world-class safety performance is its alcohol and drug policy.

"We have an alcohol and drug policy that we believe helps ensure the safety and well-being of everyone on our site," he said, adding they'll be paying attention to future legal proceedings.