Although a medical marijuana legalization bill took a major step forward in Pennsylvania last week, historic shenanigans and entrenched political infighting undermine the Keystone State’s “next cannabis hot spot'” viability.

Following 14 excruciating months of infighting and delays, Pennsylvania’s of Representatives on March 16 passed House Senate Bill 3 by a 131-56 vote, legalizing medical marijuana (which Pennsylvania’s Senate had overwhelmingly approved 40-7 in a different form in January).

If approved as is, Senate Bill 3 will land on the desk of Gov. Tom Wolf, who has been urging legislators to approve the bill.

But the chickens haven’t exactly hatched. This passed version of Senate Bill 3 quadruples the application fee costs and halves and consolidates the initial number of grow, processing and dispensary facilities, but also removes a 10 percent Tetrahydrocannabinol (“THC”) content cap, ensures diversity – veterans, minorities and women – in medical marijuana businesses, and adds sickle cell anemia and autism as “qualifying conditions.”

Further, if a single amendment is added, Senate Bill 3 returns to the House for a review and a vote and the high jinks may start anew.

Medicine of marijuana and “Serious Medical Conditions”

Marijuana contains 85 “cannabinoids,” chemical compounds secreted by cannabis flowers like THC and Cannabidiol.

Cannabinoids imitate “endocannabinoids,” compounds our bodies naturally produce, which maintain internal stability and health, provide relief to symptoms including insomnia, pain, epilepsy, depression, nausea and inflammation, and have been synthesized for legal prescription in products like Marinol, Nabilone, and Rimonabant.

Containing seven (7) more ailments than its predecessor, Senate Bill 3 lists following “serious medical conditions” treatable with medical marijuana:

1. Cancer;
2. HIV Positive or AIDS;
3. ALS;
4. Parkinson’s disease;
5. Multiple Sclerosis;
6. Spinal cord injury;
7. Epilepsy;
8. Inflammatory bowel disease;
9. Neuropathies;
10. Huntington’s disease;
11. Crohn’s disease;
12. Post-traumatic stress disorder;
13. Intractable seizures;
14. Glaucoma;
15. Sickle cell anemia;
16. Sickle cell anemia; and,
17. Severe chronic or intractable pain that is neuropathic or impervious to conventional treatment.

To obtain and possess medical marijuana, Senate Bill 3 requires patients and their caregivers to apply for state-issued cards that have a year’s validity and permit obtaining up to a 30 day supply.

Those under 18 may apply through a caregiver and each medical marijuana card may be renewed annually.

Senate Bill 3 requires creating a state-run “marijuana program information electronic database” including “medical marijuana using patients'” information which is to be kept confidential.

Increased costs grower/processors/dispensaries permitting

This passed version of Senate Bill 3 increases application fee costs by 400 percent, slashes the initial number of grow and process facilities by 60 percent, and forces dispensary ownership consolidation while imposing training and certification requirements on those caring for and issuing prescription to patients.

Unlike the House’s version which provided 65 respective licensed medical cannabis grow and processing facility and 130 independent dispensaries, the passed Senate Bill 3 initially allows up to 25 licensed grower/processors and 50 licensed dispensaries allowed to operate up to three (3) locations, i.e., 150 total dispensaries.

Doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others involved in caring for, and issuing prescriptions to, medical marijuana patients will have to undergo standardized training and certification.

1. Unlike its predecessor’s flat $50,000 registration and $5,000 annual fee schedule, Senate Bill 3 charges: Growers-processors a $10,000 application fee, $200,000 registration fee and $10,000 annual renewal fee; and,
2. Dispensaries a $5,000 application fee, $30,000 registration fee and $5,000 annual renewal fee.

Growers-processors must also pay a 5 percent state tax, the proceeds from which will subsidize research, abuse programs and financially challenged card holders.

Senate Bill 3 expressly prohibits smoking marijuana or incorporating it into an “edible” and limits the forms in which it may be dispensed to pills, oils, topicals (e.x., gel, creams or ointments), “a form medically appropriate for administration by vaporization or nebulization”, tinctures (liquid extracts) or liquids.

Oversight/Regulations

Another bone of contention will be governance.

Abandoning its predecessor’s establishing of a State Board of Medical Cannabis Licensing (mirroring Colorado’s administering legalized marijuana program through its “Marijuana Enforcement Division), Senate Bill 3 appoints Pennsylvania’s Department of Health to oversee its program and creates a special advisory board.

Senate Bill 3 requires promulgating permanent medical marijuana regulations within 18 months addressing: advertising and marketing; indoor, enclosed facility’s growing methods; “certification review and approval procedures” for patients and practitioners, identification cards applications, medical marijuana organization applications, laboratory testing reporting results, medical marijuana testing laboratories and filing dispensary-generated receipts; dispensary’s maximum per-dose price; grower/processor’s “transporting, delivering, growing, processing and selling” methods; dispensary’s dispensing methods including saleable types of medical devices and instruments; methods for maintaining effective security and control to prevent theft and abuse including specifying tracking system requirements; contents, timing and frequency of filing reports with Department; proper electronic information; labeling information requirements; criteria for designating under-18-patient’s caregiver; safety insert’s contents; inspection schedule for “grow/process/dispense” facilities and required “books, papers and tracking systems”; research study regulations regarding patient selection and program implementation; regulations ensuring that “valid registration holding” growers, processors, and dispensaries provide/procure medical marijuana from/to each other; and minimum number and types of medical marijuana to be produced and dispensed. 

What Happens Next

Comprised of 67 counties and containing the nation’s oldest population, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is as slow to change as it is unpredictable.

While the past is no predictor of the future, this game of legislative ping-pong may have several more rounds until cannabis legalization can be declared.