(MA) Mass. Hospitals Weigh Medical Marijuana Liability Risk

As Massachusetts lays the groundwork for medical marijuana, new clashes between the state law and a continuing federal ban on marijuana use are emerging. Hospitals, hospice care organizations and nursing homes are weighing the balance of serving their patients and protecting billions of dollars in federal funding.

Here’s the dilemma: Towards the end of long forms that authorize federal payments to hospitals, an executive has to certify that yes, the hospital is in compliance with federal law. But that statement would not be true if patients at the hospital are using marijuana for medical purposes and a doctor at that hospital is helping them.

“It’s really challenging for the practitioners,” says Larry Vernaglia, an attorney at Foley & Lardner who wrote a memo laying out the issues for the Massachusetts Hospital Association. If doctors say to themselves “‘even though we have this new pathway under state law, we’re not going to help our patients for fear of our liability,’ I think that’s a terrible position to be in,” Vernaglia says.

And hospitals face significant possible risks. Tim Gens, executive vice president at the Massachusetts Hospital Association, says violating federal law could get hospitals in trouble with the IRS over their nonprofit status. Grants through the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense fund most of the research at Boston hospitals. And there’s the billions of dollars in payments hospitals receive through Medicare and Medicaid.

http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2013/11/mass-hospitals-medical-marijuana