MACo Policy Associate Drew Jabin yesterday submitted testimony to the House Economic Matters Committee to support HB 683 Workers’ Compensation – Medical Cannabis – Compensation and Benefits with amendments. This bill requires employers or their insurers to include medical cannabis with covered medications.

From the MACo Testimony:

Counties raise concern that due to cannabis being illegal under federal law, being required to provide this as medicine under state law may jeopardize federal funding for local jurisdictions.

MACo suggests an amendment to address this concern by adding language to say that this legislation is not applicable if doing so would violate federal law or regulations or cause the employer to lose a monetary or licensing-related benefit under federal law or regulations.

Comparable language has been incorporated into similar legislation to ensure these unwanted outcomes – MACo encourages the same approach in HB 683. Maryland county governments all have a common goal of providing for the health and wellbeing of their employees, but understandably do not want to lose federal assistance in that pursuit

Follow MACo’s advocacy efforts during the 2021 legislative session on MACo’s Legislative Tracking Database.