Updates to Pennsylvania’s Medical Marijuana Program

Yesterday, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health Dr. Karen Murphy provided an update on the application review process for contending grower/processors and dispensaries.

The Department of Health (DOH) has received over 500 packages (containing one or more applications in each package) from applicants competing for the coveted 12 grower/processor and 27 dispensary permits which the DOH will be issuing in the first phase of licensing.  In efforts to keep the review process as transparent as possible, the DOH has released a list of applicants that it has logged to date here.  Only about half of the 500 packages have been logged so far. The DOH will update this chart to include the remaining applications once they have had the opportunity to review them.

According to a press release issued by the DOH, “[d]espite the large volume, the Department of Health has developed an intake process to carefully track and log each application and to ensure adequate staffing to meet the demand. The department anticipates it will issue permits at the end of June.”

DOH Seed-to-Sale Tracking

On April 20^th, Secretary Murphy also announced that the DOH has selected  MJ Freeway to implement the seed-to-sale electronic tracking system, to be used to monitor, control and report on activities of licensed organizations for Pennsylvania’s Medical Marijuana Program.  The contract with MJ Freeway is estimated to cost over $10 million over the next 5 years.

Safe Harbor Letters

As part of the press release issued yesterday, the most recent number of approved Safe Harbor letters currently stands at 231.  The DOH developed the Safe Harbor program to assist caregivers in obtaining medical marijuana for minors who have a physician-documented serious medical condition (as defined by the Medical Marijuana Act) until dispensaries are up and running in Pennsylvania in 2018.

For more information, contact Medical Marijuana Practice Group for updates on Pennsylvania and Federal legislation affecting the Pennsylvania medical marijuana industry.