Many medical cannabis patients dream of a day when they can fill a prescription for their medicine at a pharmacy and have their insurance company pay for it. That last part – reimbursement for the cost of medical cannabis – just became a reality, at least for one New Mexico patient.

Gregory Vialpando, a Santa Fe car mechanic with a lower back injury sustained in 2000, uses medical cannabis to treat severe chronic pain his doctor describes as some of the worst he has ever seen. Mr. Vialpando was initially prescribed multiple narcotics and anti-depressants, but both his primary care provider and another doctor recommended medical cannabis, so he asked a state workers’ compensation judge to approve it in 2013.