Windsor Residents Get Cannabis Health Care Coverage

In Windsor, Canada, workers whose jobs include road repair or construction and part of a union will have medical cannabis included as part of their health care coverage.

According to LiUNA!625, the Laborer’s International Union of North America, the union pays for workers’ health insurance and for their families’ coverage, and starting this June, that will include “pharmagrade medical cannabis products.” The coverage was added because of the amount of injuries sustained by those in the physical labor fields. Often, workers turn to opiates as a way to dull their pain and become addicted. LiUNA would like to see a decrease in the amount of workers taking opiates.

“Now that we’ve added this, we’re hoping more doctors . . . will move towards prescribing the cannabis oil as opposed to the opioids,” said Rob Petroni, business manager of LiUNA. “The most important part of this is to reduce the opioid use and or abuse. Quite honestly, out of 3,600 people, if one person gets off opioids, it’s better than nobody.”

Not only will current workers be able to receive free medical cannabis, retired workers will have access as well. This is also going to save a considerable amount of money for LiUNA, since they are paying the insurance coverage. A treatment for irritable bowel syndrome in Windsor can cost as much as $60,000, while the recommended amount of cannabis for IBS would only run the insurance company $2,500.

LiUNA also claims to be the first trade-workers union in Canada to provide cannabis coverage to Union members. Windsor is unique from the rest of Canada because it has often been compared to Detroit, due to its proximity across the lake to the U.S. city and the amount of people who work in the labor trades. It makes sense that Windsor would become the first place to make cannabis health care rights for workers a top priority.

As Canada continues to move forward with nation-wide legalization, it may just be a matter of time before health care packages like the one offered by LiUNA are standard practice.