In a Victory for Stoners, Judge Declares Bears “Equal-Opportunity Maulers”

Hooray for herbalists. The hapless fellow working at Great Bear Adventures who tried to feed a grizzly after savoring a bit of relaxing marijuana (and who was summarily attacked by said grizzly) has been awarded workers’ comp for injuries sustained during the feeding.

In a case that Andrew Sullivan dubs “Colbert-bait and Dish self-parody, all wrapped up in one,” the company had argued that the man’s smokin’ of the doobie on the morning of the incident was why he got attacked (plus, they said, he was a volunteer).

Ultimately Judge Shea of the Montana Workers’ Compensation Court confirmed that the man was an employee (who feeds bears for free?). And, further, that “[w]hen it comes to attacking humans, grizzlies are equal opportunity maulers; attacking without regard to race, creed, ethnicity, or marijuana usage.”

The judge added that using marijuana to “kick off” a day of working with grizzly bears was “ill-advised” and “mind-bogglingly stupid.” We’d go so far as to say that probably applies to working with grizzly bears in general, drugs notwithstanding.