Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) Secretary, Dr. Karen Murphy, along with DOH medical cannabis program director, John Collins, provided an update on the program which was highlighted by the announcement that applications for grower/processor (G/P) and dispensary permits will be posted to the agency’s website on January 17th, 2017.

Applications will be accepted February 20th through March 20th. The Department anticipates it will need 90 days (potential for June/July awards) to sort through the applications and has stated they expect up to 900 total applications.

While temporary regulations state what the Department would like a successful application to look like, DOH has not yet determined ranking criteria.

While the statute allows for 25 grower/processor licenses and 50 dispensary licenses to be issued, DOH stated that they will issue the licenses in phases.

Phase 1 will see the awarding of 12 G/P permits and 27 dispensary permits. There is no time-line determined for Phase 2.

The DOH also shared how the Phase 1 implementation will be broken down into the six DOH regions and how the awarding of dispensary permits will be limited to a specific number for each region (chart below).

They further explained that each dispensary could open two other dispensaries but they would be limited to that region and will have to be in different counties than the initial location that will be listed on the application.

DOH explained that this break-down is based on patient population, location of the diseases patients said they would most want to be treated for (pain and PTSD top the list), as well as where the industry has said it would want to most compete for licenses.

DOH gained data on patients and industry from online surveys the DOH had published on their website.

The Phase 1 plan of allowing a limited number of licenses/permits to be initially awarded is one that insiders will not find surprising. The Department has been discussing this implementation strategy with the legislative working group for several months.

While it may be helpful to slowly implement the program with a limited amount of licenses granted from a regulatory and enforcement standpoint, and one that has been used in other states,  potential Pennsylvania applicants and investors may see the phase-in approach as increased uncertainty at the state-level in an industry that faces numerous existing federal challenges.

Hearing what the DOH ranking criteria will be, and justification for awarding of the first round of permits, will be where DOH’s medical cannabis program will meet its first public challenge.

Whatever decision DOH makes on awarding permits in the first phase will likely generate controversy among interested parties within Commonwealth as winners and losers will be shown, and a whole group of others will have to wait-and-see what will happen in Phase 2.

The passage of the medical cannabis legislation in 2016 was noted as one of Governor Tom Wolf’s major accomplishments and, as such, has been given priority as the regulatory process, which is notoriously slow in Pennsylvania, has been right on target for achieving goals to date.

The following tables represent the number and counties for medical marijuana primary dispensary permits.

Chart provided by Department of Health: