The U.S. House of Representatives passed the MORE Act in early December, a bill written to decriminalize and tax marijuana at the federal level. The bill now sits with the Senate, where most believe it is unlikely to advance. Regardless, this is the first time that comprehensive legislation to decriminalize marijuana has passed the full House or Senate. The vote comes at a time when most Americans live in states where marijuana is legal in some form, and national cannabis policy has lagged behind changes at the state level.
This divide has created a host of problems in regulating medical marijuana use, which impacts workers’ compensation as some states require workers’ comp payers to reimburse medical marijuana on certain claims.
WorkersCompensation.com recently discussed how this momentous vote could be an important step towards furthering medical research, reaching out to industry experts for their opinion on the matter, including Healthesystems Chief Medical Officer, Robert Goldberg, MD, FACOEM.
Dr. Goldberg was quoted saying:
“The medical community and the pharma industry could perform the robust research that is sorely needed on clinical safety and effectiveness, dose formulations and pharmacology, the dose-response curve, and workplace/public safety. Once cannabis is no longer Schedule I, physicians could prescribe, pharmacists could dispense, patients could legally acquire and use in all 50 states, and payers would no longer be restrained by federal or state regulations to reimburse for medically necessary and appropriate prescriptions/ recommendations.”
