P<\/span>ennsylvania lawmakers and advocates are up in arms over a lawsuit that could threaten to wipe out the state\u2019s budding medical marijuana program.<\/p>\n The lawsuit was filed on Sept. 8 by Keystone Releaf<\/a>, one of the companies who did not get an application during the state\u2019s first wave of accepting permits. According to the lawsuit<\/a>, the aspiring dispensary owner believes the Department of Health screwed up the whole application process when it came to actually awarding the permits and in the process broke the regulations meant to guide the program. Hence, Keystone Releaf is seeking an injunction by the courts to halt the state\u2019s entire medical cannabis program \u2014 despite the shock-wave effect it could have on Pennsylvania patients who\u2019ve already waited this long.<\/p>\n Luckily, the state senator who led the effort to legalize medical marijuana is now coming to bat for patients once again. In a letter to the legal firm representing Keystone Releaf, State Sen. Daylin Leach urged the laywers to have their client take another look at their actions.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t imagine a company such as Keystone ReLeaf, which took the time and effort to try to enter this space, presumably to help patients, would want to be responsible for harming patients in such a cruel way,\u201d said Leach in the letter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Leech went on to note his firm commitment to neutrality in the Department of Health\u2019s <\/a>selection process, only saying he hoped the best applicants got the licenses. He didn\u2019t make light of the idea that Keystone Releaf was wronged in some way during the process, but is convinced there was a better way for them to move forward.<\/p>\n \u201cMy commitment to neutrality extends to your lawsuit,\u201d said Leach. \u201cThat said, it is my belief that any unjust inconvenience or financial loss your client may have suffered can be remedied by a court in many ways short of shutting down the entire program. Because surely, no deprivation your client has sustained can be worth inflicting additional suffering on patients or literally costing them their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n We reached out to longtime activist, Temple University instructor and Philly.com columnist Chris Goldstein<\/a> to get his take. Goldstein has had a finger on the pulse of the Mid-Atlantic cannabis policy scene for a decade and is one of the go to folks for Pennsylvania pot policy. (For his efforts, last week he won the Hunter S. Thompson NORML Media Award at the organization\u2019s national conference.)<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we see are law firms and sour grapes losers who didn\u2019t win in the first permits who try and force the program into suspension,\u201d said Goldstein. \u201cNow this happened in Maryland and in Florida. Both states had problems.\u201d<\/p>\n Goldstein said that before Florida passed its new medical cannabis law last year<\/a>, they had a very limited law they were trying to implement at the same time that Maryland was going through implementation process as well.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it was exposed there was a lot of corruption in the selection of these permit holders and flaws in the selection process they suspended both states\u2019 programs,\u201d Goldstein said. \u201cIn Maryland\u2019s case they actually went back and legislatively amended the law. Permit holders had to wait three years from initially getting the permit and are now starting to open.\u201d<\/p>\n Goldstein believes the lawsuit is among the first of many that will seek to force a Maryland-style hand in Pennsylvania, adding the Keystone Releaf lawsuit was the boldest one he\u2019s seen yet.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that any business in good faith trying to win one of the permits is going to try and shut it down for all the patients just shows where their sentiment was to begin with. They weren\u2019t in it for the patients, they were in it for the business model,\u201d Goldstein said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n When asked if he thought the lawsuit had legs, Goldstein responded that he doesn\u2019t think this single lawsuit is going to have as big an impact on the program. \u201cBut I think if we see more \u2014\u201d Goldstein responded ominously, \u201cif we see a flight of lawsuits like this, just like Maryland, it could force the program into suspension. It\u2019s usually not one lawsuit that does it.\u201d<\/p>\n Goldstein believes that, when states try to limit with over-restrictive licensing processes instead of operating with more of a free market system, they become more susceptible to this kind of event. \u201cThat\u2019s what makes it vulnerable to lawsuits, the limited program,\u201d Goldstein said. \u201cIn a free market, they wouldn\u2019t have the leverage to shut down the whole program.\u201d<\/p>\n Goldstein closed on one of a unique aspects of Pennsylvania<\/a>\u2019s law, which was that publicly traded companies were able to apply for permits since day one. \u201cIt was the first time ever, so Pennsylvania attracted a different type of corporate investor and those kinds of people have lots of lawyers.\u201d The ease of which some of the other failed applicants could get another lawsuit going is worrisome for anyone hoping for this chapter to end.<\/p>\n Becky Dansky covers all things Pennsylvania-cannabis-related for the D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project<\/a>. She also doesn\u2019t believe this particular case will do too much.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019re going to get anywhere with it,\u201d Dansky said. \u201cThere are 141 other people sad they didn\u2019t get a license, who filed appeals and they\u2019re not trying to hold up the program for these patients who\u2019ve been waiting so long now.\u201d<\/p>\n Contrary to the lawsuit, Dansky believes the departments have done a really good job on the rollout. \u201cThey\u2019ve stuck to the timeline, we believed two years was a realistic timeline. They\u2019re going to come in just under it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been going really well with a couple of bumps here or there and it\u2019s just really frustrating when people are like \u2018I deserve to have a license because I say so and I\u2019m going to hold up to 200,000 to 250,000 patients potentially.\u2019 They\u2019re going to have to sit around waiting because somebody thinks they somehow got snubbed and that\u2019s really frustrating to me. If you think that you getting a permit is more important than people getting their medicine, you don\u2019t deserve to be in the medical marijuana business<\/a>,\u201d said Dansky.<\/p>\n Dansky also noted the letter by Sen. Leach was spot on. \u201cI think he did a really good job of saying he wasn\u2019t dismissing their claim but if they want to go through with it you can do it without doing this to patients,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In the lawsuit, one of the arguments against the state is that the Department of Health issued permits to a company under investigation in New York. However, the only thing applicants were required to disclose was convictions \u2014 not investigations, according to Dansky.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course if the reviewers had knowledge of medical marijuana news they would have recognized that company\u2019s name and if any had seen that name on the application they wouldn\u2019t have awarded it to them. But because the information was redacted, the reviewers couldn\u2019t actually see that. They went by what they saw on paper. Now knowing what they know, should they maybe reconsider? Probably, but you can\u2019t have it both ways,\u201d Dansky said.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> how should the courts balance pursuing justice and granting access for cannabis patients?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The post Pennsylvania Lawsuit Threatens State MMJ Program<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A scorned permit applicant sued for an injunction that could bring Pennsylvania\u2019s entire medical marijuana program to a grinding halt \u2014 before anyone has even opened their dispensary doors. Pennsylvania lawmakers and advocates are up in arms over a lawsuit that could threaten to wipe out the state\u2019s budding medicalContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,80,90,139,285],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19517"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19518,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19517\/revisions\/19518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\n
\nRead More: Pennsylvania Lawsuit Threatens State MMJ Program<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"