Medical Marijuana: What Would it Look Like for Comp?

Mark Pew is a bonafide marijuana expert. No, not the kind of expert your mother told you to avoid in high school. Mark is a Senior Vice President at Prium who has spent a great deal of time studying how marijuana usage has or may impact the workers’ compensation system. Mark recently posted an article that examines how the state of New Mexico’s medical marijuana policies may impact its workers’ compensation system.

New Mexico could become to medical marijuana Work Comp reimbursement what Colorado has been to recreational legalization – an experiment.

I attended the public hearing in Albuquerque on August 6 where work comp rule changes proposed by the Workers’ Compensation Administration (WCA) were discussed. The reason why I flew from Atlanta to Albuquerque was the changes to chapter 4, part 7 to address the mechanism by which employers will reimburse injured workers for their use of medical marijuana.

Mark lists seven unanswered questions regarding the issue. He concludes, “effective January 1, 2016, New Mexico will be the first state to codify work comp reimbursement for medical marijuana. If you manage work comp claims in New Mexico — or any other state that has legalized medical marijuana and has not explicitly excluded employer reimbursement — this is a “canary in the coal mine” moment.”

Read the whole thing.