The impact of the new law, House Bill 523, effective September 8, 2016, legalizing medical marijuana in Ohio for certain medical conditions, is limited in regard to the Ohio BWC.
It does not adversely affect the Drug-Free Safety Program, will not require BWC to pay for patient access to marijuana, and expressly states that an employee under the influence
of marijuana is not covered by workers' compensation.
Specifically:
* Nothing in the law requires an employer to accommodate an employee's use of medical marijuana;
* the law does NOT prohibit an employer from refusing to hire, discharging, or taking an adverse employment action because of a person's use of medical marijuana;
* the law specifies that marijuana is covered under "rebuttable presumption." In general, this means that an employee whose injury was the result of being intoxicated
or under the influence of marijuana is not eligible for workers' compensation. This is the case regardless of whether the marijuana use is recommended by a physician;
* While the law does not specifically address reimbursement for medical marijuana recommended for injured workers, Ohio law already has rules and statutes in place that
limit what medications are reimbursable by BWC.
Administrative code provides that drugs covered by BWC are limited to those that are approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration. Marijuana has not
been approved by the FDA and remains a Schedule I illegal drug under federal law.
BWC funded prescriptions must be dispensed by a registered pharmacist from an enrolled provider. Medical marijuana will be dispensed from retail marijuana dispensaries,
not from enrolled pharmacies.
What can employers do? The best way employers can protect their workers and themselves is to establish a drug-free work place, or if they already have one, to review and update
it if necessary. This is important because certain sections of the new law reference the use of medical marijuana in violation of an employer's drug-free workplace policy,
zero-tolerance policy or other formal program or policy regulating the use of medical marijuana. For what this means to your specific workplace, consult your human resources
or legal department
The FDA recently voted in favor of pushing a new formulation of oxycodone hydrochloride for approval. The new OxyContin formula is more difficult to crush or dissolve which will hopefully make it harder to be used as a drug of abuse . The FDA recommended that Purdue Pharma's application for a new, resin-coated formulation should replace the original version, which has been on the market since 1996. Randall Flick, MD, an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic who voted to recommend approval of the drug said, "Clearly the old formulation is worse than the new, although I think the difference is relatively small," Flick concluded, "Hardcore abusers are likely to devise new ways to break down the harder tablet or figure out which solvents will dissolve it fastest, within 'day or weeks' of the product's release on the market."