On March 14th, the California Department of Industrial Relations held a public hearing on adopting proposed evidence-based updates to the medical treatment utilization schedule (MTUS). This included updates from the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) for Chronic Pain Guidelines and the Cannabis Guideline.

The updated Cannabis Guideline, released January 28, 2025, gives a status of “Not Recommended” for medical marijuana for the treatment of chronic pain, acute pain, post-operative pain, and for safety-critical workers.

Safety-critical workers were defined as jobs that “include the operation of motor vehicles, forklifts, overhead cranes, heavy equipment, or other modes of transportation; sharps works (e.g., knives); work with injury risks (e.g., heights); and tasks involving high levels of cognitive function and judgment.”

The scope of this evidence-based guidelines is on the treatment of pain ensuing from disorders that have a reasonable probability of being work-related and does not include other conditions such as terminal care, PTSD, sleep disturbance, epilepsy, and more.