New Jersey Employee Wins Medical Marijuana Cost Reimbursement

A New Jersey construction company must comply with a state workers’ compensation judge’s order to reimburse a former employee’s use of medical marijuana, which he relies on to treat chronic pain caused by a work-related injury, a New Jersey appeals court ruled.

The federal Controlled Substances Act doesn’t preempt New Jersey’s Compassionate Release Medical Marijuana Act, and there’s no other “legislative or legal barrier” at issue, Judge Heidi Willis Currier of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, held Monday. Additionally, the court said that the MMA doesn’t exempt workers’ compensation insurers from reimbursing the costs of medical marijuana, ...