William Paterson Webinar To Discuss Marijuana And Workers' Comp

WAYNE, NJ — The Cannabis Reserach Institute at William Paterson will host a July webinar discussing the connection between legal cannabis and a decline in workers' compensation claims.

Recently, one William Paterson professor found that workers' compensation claims are likely to decline as legal marijuana continues to proceed in New Jersey. This is the result of fewer mistakes and greater work capacity due in large part to cannabis use for pain management among the aging workforce, researchers found.

Rahi Abouk is a health economics professor, and director of the Cannabis Research Institute at William Paterson University. Abouk is also the lead author of this recent study, titled "Does Marijuana Legalization Affect Work Capacity? Evidence from Workers' Compensation Benefit", which is published in the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Abouk will be joined by Catherine Maclean, health economics professor at Temple University, to discuss the study they worked on together.

Maclean is a research associate in the Health Economics Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research and is a research affiliate at the Institute of Labor Economics. She is co-editor at the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and an associate editor at the Journal of Health Economics.

The webinar is scheduled for Thursday, July 8, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. via Zoom.

The event is free, and the public is invited to participate. A question and answer session will follow, the college said.

Want to know more about the study? Click here: Legal Weed Could Reduce Workers' Comp Claims, NJ Professor Says

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