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Although the new White House administration is clearly not a pro-marijuana regime like its predecessor, state initiatives continue to progress as the medical benefits associated with marijuana are impossible to ignore.
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health issued 12 permits for medical marijuana cultivators. The companies issued a permit have six months to become operational before they can start growing medical marijuana.
The permits were issued to companies that reside in one of six regions of the state (two permits per region). This distribution method is much better than what we have seen in other states since it should make medical marijuana easily accessible for registered patients all over Pennsylvania. The permits were issued to:
- Southeast Region: Prime Wellness of Pennsylvania and Franklin Labs
- Northeast Region: Pennsylvania Medical Solutions and Standard Farms
- Southcentral Region: Ilera Healthcare and AES Compassionate Care
- Northcentral Region: Terrapin Investment Fund 1 and GTI Pennsylvania
- Southwest Region: AGRiMED Industries of PA and PurePenn
- Northeast Region: Holistic Farms and Cresco Yeltrah
A Competitive Market Opportunity
Pennsylvania is an attractive operating environment and the state received more than 450 applications.
The state’s Office of Medical Marijuana recorded almost 60% more applications for a dispensary facility than it did for a cultivation facility and Pennsylvania’s market proved to be very competitive.
John Collins, Director of the Office of Medical Marijuana said, “The next step for the permit holders will be to ramp up their operations so they can prepare to grow medical marijuana. Our teams will perform a series of site inspections before the locations can be certified as operational. Once that happens, the permittees will be able to begin growing and processing medical marijuana.”
An Improving (But Not Perfect) Program
In April 2016, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed the Medical Marijuana Program and since then, the department has:
- Completed the Safe Harbor temporary guidelines and Safe Harbor Letter application process, as well as approved 271 applications;
- Completed temporary regulations for cultivators, dispensaries, laboratories and physicians, which was published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.
- Released Phase 1 permit applications for cultivators and dispensaries
- Developed the Medical Marijuana Physician Workgroup
- Drafted temporary regulations for practitioners to participate in the program
- Selected MJ Freeway to implement a seed-to-sale electronic tracking system
In May 2016, Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program became effective and is expected to be fully implemented in 2018. The program will offer medical marijuana to patients who are under a physician’s care for the treatment of a serious medical condition including ALS, autism, cancer, HIV/AIDS, Crohn’s disease/inflammatory bowel disease, epilepsy and seizures, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, PTSD, severe pain/neuropathies, sickle cell anemia, and terminal illnesses.
Pennsylvania: An Attractive Market for Public Companies
The Pennsylvania medical marijuana opportunity attracted several outside consultants to the state and we identified two publicly traded companies focused on it.
In late March, American Cannabis Company, Inc. (AMMJ) announced that five of its active clients successfully applied in Pennsylvania. Two applied for a dispensary license, one applied for a cultivation license, and the other two applied for both a cultivation and dispensary license.
Last fall, Medicine Man Technologies (MDCL) announced that it had signed 10 new clients in the month of October. Of these new clients, five were based in Pennsylvania and we will continue to monitor developments around this opportunity for the company.
Learn More
- Applicant scores can be found, www.health.pa.gov
- To learn about Act 16, click here
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