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DPA's Office of Legal Affairs has achieved a huge win for medical marijuana patients after a three-year legal battle. A court decided in September that low-income medical marijuana patients in California who receive state public assistance benefits may qualify for reimbursement for the cost of their medicine.
Court cases like this are time consuming and expensive, but they are essential to eliminating barriers to compassionate medical treatment that works best for the patient.
Help us continue our legal fights to protect and expand access to medical cannabis by making a donation today.
The case centered on Sylvia Price, who uses medical marijuana to alleviate severe, constant pain associated with lupus and other conditions. Ms. Price sought and received reimbursements for the cost of her medical marijuana under Lake County's public assistance program, which took into account Ms. Price's out-of-pocket expenses for medical marijuana when determining what level of assistance she should receive.
Then, three years ago, Lake County suddenly stopped reimbursing Ms. Price, claiming that federal law prohibited it from doing so. DPA took on her case, and after countless hours of legal research, writing, representation, three administrative hearings and one appeal, the administrative court last month finally resolved the issue by making clear that federal marijuana laws do not prevent the state from honoring its medical marijuana law.
This means that medical marijuana patients receiving state health benefits may qualify for reimbursement of reasonable, documented expenses incurred in obtaining their physician-recommended marijuana, a huge step in bringing health parity to people who find that cannabis is the best treatment for their illness.
Court cases like this are essential to protecting and expanding medical marijuana. If we let even one administrative agency be intimidated by the federal government into not enforcing state medical marijuana laws, then our past victories will be severely weakened. In the past we fought the feds and won in the Conant v. McCaffrey case, which affirmed the right of doctors to recommend medical marijuana to their patients.
And our battle continues. With our allies, we are representing patients in a suit which will force three holdout California counties to uphold state law by implementing a medical marijuana distribution system. DPA's Office of Legal Affairs is also supporting Gary Ross, a California medical marijuana patient who was fired by his employer after testing positive for medical marijuana he used during off-hours in accordance with his doctor's recommendation for the treatment of severe pain. These are just a few of the cases our legal team is working on.
We can't fight these important legal battles without your consistent and generous donations. Please make a special donation today to support our legal work. Patients like Sylvia Price, Gary Ross, and others across the country will be glad you did.
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