The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that a labor appeals board erred when it determined a workers’ compensation insurer was unable to reimburse an employee for the cost of medical marijuana.

The court ruled that under New Hampshire’s medical marijuana law a carrier is not banned from reimbursing, and a qualified patient is entitled to medical marijuana.

Andrew Panaggio was injured in 1991 and was awarded a permanent impairment award in 1996. He received a lump-sum settlement in 1997. He continued to experience pain from his injury and had adverse side effects to the opiates he was prescribed. The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services decided he was eligible for a therapeutic cannabis program and issued him a New Hampshire cannabis registry identification card in 2016. He submitted his purchase receipt to his workers’ compensation insurance carrier for reimbursement which the carrier denied, claiming medical marijuana was not reasonably necessary or causally connected to his injury.

The Board determined that his use of medical marijuana was reasonable or necessary, but still refused to order reimbursement by the carrier because the purpose of the medical marijuana statute was to protect providers “from being subject to criminal prosecution under federal law.” The Supreme Court thought that because the board had found his use of medical marijuana reasonable, medically necessary and causally related to his injury, they erred when they determined the carrier was prohibited from reimbursing him. Their obligation was the preexisting obligation that remained unchanged by the language of the medical marijuana law, and a qualifying patient should not be denied.

The court reversed and remanded the base back to the state Appeals Board for additional consideration, saying the failed to provide an adequate explanation of their reasoning regarding federal law, as the federal law makes possession or the use of marijuana a federal crime.

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