A Pennsylvania appeals court ruled Friday that the state’s medical marijuana law does not prohibit insurers from reimbursing injured workers for medical marijuana in cases where the drug is used to treat accepted work injuries.
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled that the state Board of Workers’ Compensation Appeals erred in upholding a decision by Firestone Tire & Rubber to deny reimbursement for the cost of Paul Sheetz’s medical marijuana.
Sheetz, now deceased, used medical marijuana to treat chronic pain from a work injury in 1977. He used the drug to reverse decades of prescription opioid use.
“I am so excited that the Commonwealth Court, in its wisdom, agreed that workers̵
7; comp carriers must compensate injured workers who use medical marijuana to treat severe and often lifelong injuries,” said Jenifer Kaufman, the Abington, Pennsylvania-based attorney. who represented the plaintiff’s estate, said after Friday’s ruling. “This is a game changer for the injured workers who have worked hard to get dangerous and expensive opioids off us and are forced to pay the cost of medical marijuana treatment out of their fixed incomes.”Ms. Kaufman said the case means that insurers must reimburse marijuana costs in cases where treatment is deemed “reasonable and necessary,” and that reimbursement would likely only come in serious or old injury cases where medical marijuana is the “primary method of treatment.”
Firestone argued that forcing them to reimburse medical marijuana, which is illegal federally, would violate federal law, but the court ruled that reimbursement is not a federal crime because insurers do not prescribe the drug themselves.
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