Mounting legal challenges are threatening to bog down the rollout of the state’s medical marijuana program, leading to significant delays in treatment for patients as previously experienced in states such as Maryland and Florida, advocates fear.
At least 140 unsuccessful medical marijuana permit applicants — or one of every three — have filed administrative appeals with the Pennsylvania Department of Health challenging the denials.
And a lawsuit filed in Commonwealth Court on Friday by Keystone ReLeaf of Bethlehem seeks to halt the medical marijuana program, including the revocation of all grower/processor and dispensary permits issued in June. All permit recipients would be blocked from moving forward with their businesses.
The suit charges the health department’s permitting process lacked transparency and was fundamentally flawed.
Keystone ReLeaf attorney Seth Tipton, of the firm Florio Perrucci Steinhardt & Fader, claims the health department “arbitrarily and unfairly waived certain legislative requirements for some applicants but not all, made exceptions for certain applicants but not others, inconsistently scored and reviewed applications, and ultimately treated like applicants differently, due to bias, favoritism or otherwise.” One of Tipton’s colleagues, Christian Perrucci, is the managing member of Keystone ReLeaf, according to the lawsuit.
While not as broad in scope, Luzerne County applicant BrightStar BioMedics also filed a injunction request Friday against the Health Department, seeking the repeal of a specific applicant’s permit. It leveled similar criticisms against the department’s rollout of the medical marijuana program.
On Monday, state Sen. Daylin Leach, a Montgomery County Democrat, sent an open letter to Florio Perrucci asking the firm to drop its lawsuit.
“People who need this medicine are breathlessly awaiting dispensaries, stocked with the medicines they need, to open,” Leach wrote. “If the entire program is delayed, people will be forced to needlessly endure excruciating pain, agony, and, in some cases, death.
Gov. Tom Wolf signed the state’s medical marijuana act into law in April 2016. People with 17 qualifying conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder, inflammatory bowel disease and cancer, would be able to obtain an ID card allowing them to buy certain cannabis products.
In June, following what Tipton and others have called a “secretive selection process,” the health department issued 12 grower/processor permits and 27 dispensary permits. Allentown and Bethlehem are each slated to get one dispensary.
Joshua Horn, co-chairman of the cannabis law practice at Fox Rothschild, said that while lawsuits somewhat similar to Keystone’s in Maryland and other states ultimately failed, they did delay the rollout of the medical marijuana programs.
But he also noted that the circumstances causing controversy in each state are different, and that Pennsylvania has so far only issued about half of the permits allowed under the 2016 law. Thirteen grower/processor permits and 23 dispensary permits remain.
While understanding unsuccessful applicants’ frustrations, Horn echoed Leach’s concerns about how a halted program would affect patients.
“Shutting down the entire program wouldn’t seem to make sense,” he said.
Chris Goldstein, a Philadelphia marijuana legalization advocate, said Monday that an onslaught of lawsuits tends to send regulators back to the drawing board to figure out what’s gone wrong. Maryland adopted its medical marijuana law in 2014 but approved final licenses this summer after controversies over conflicts of interest and diversity representation. Florida passed legislation this summer implementing a constitutional amendment passed last year that followed legalization of medical marijuana in 2014.
“Now that these lawsuits are filed here, others will invariably build on their language to force the issue, “ he said.
While Goldstein applauded the Health Department’s efforts and good intentions, he believes its stumbles were almost inevitable given its decision to micro-manage the issuance of permits instead of enabling a compliance-based market.
“This process is extremely vulnerable to lawsuits and regulatory delays,” he said.
April Hutcheson, a Health Department spokeswoman, declined to directly address the lawsuits.
“We are moving forward with a patient-focused medical marijuana program to get Pennsylvanians with serious medical conditions the help they desperately need,” she wrote in a statement.
Tim Charles, owner of Pa Cannabis LLC in Emmaus, is one of the unsuccessful applicants who has appealed. He said Monday he was still waiting for an administrative law judge to be appointed to oversee his appeal about two months after it was filed. Meanwhile, less than four months remain until permit recipients are supposed to be operational.
While he’s unsure whether he will file his own injunction request, Charles said he is at his wits’ end with the state permitting process.
“It’s all been a charade,” he said.
At issue: Two unsuccessful medical marijuana permit applicants have filed lawsuits in Commonwealth Court against the state Department of Health, claiming the permitting process was flawed. One seeks to halt the entire medical marijuana program. This comes two months after 140 unsuccessful applicants filed administrative appeals with the state Health Department challenging the denials.
What’s next: Advocates fear more lawsuits seeking to halt the the entire program will follow, which regardless of court decisions could delay patients access to the medicine.
credit:mcall.com
