Which doctors are on Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana registry?

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A full list of approved practitioners can be found on the state’s new medical marijuana website, together with information for physicians, patients and caregivers looking to participate. The registry was approved this summer.

The roster, available below, includes four doctors from Cumberland County, two from Dauphin County, two from Lancaster County, one from Lebanon County and three from York County.

The approved practitioners are spread across the state, and include three doctors in New Jersey and one in Delaware. They represent a range of specialties, from family medicine, neurology and psychiatry, to pain management, internal medicine and oncology.

“We have a very good distribution of physicians throughout the commonwealth,” John Collins, director of the state’s Office of Medical Marijuana, said following a press conference at the state Capitol rotunda Wednesday morning.

Collins, together with acting Health Secretary Rachel Levine, lawmakers, patients and their caregivers gathered at the Capitol to discuss progress on efforts to provide medical marijuana to patients who are Pennsylvania residents and under a physician’s care for the treatment of a serious medical condition.

The medical marijuana program is scheduled to be operational in the first half of 2018.

More than 300 physicians have registered with the department to participate in the program, Levine said. Those who have not already been approved are undergoing a state-mandated four-hour training program to become certified, she added.

So far, state officials added, two grower-processor licensees have been approved for companies to begin production of medical marijuana products: Cresco Yeltrah LLC, in Jefferson County, and Standard Farms LLC, in Luzerne County.

The other approved grower-processors “are working very hard to be up-and-running,” Collins said.

Health officials this summer approved the first batch of 12 grower/processor licenses and 27 dispensary licenses. 

“As Governor Wolf promised when he legalized the program last year, we are on track to deliver medication to patients in the next six months,” Levine said.

“You have my commitment: It’s going to happen,” Collins added, to rousing applause under the rotunda’s echoing dome.

Health Department spokeswoman April Hutcheson said patients who have signed up for the registry will start receiving ID cards in December.

While state law allows 25 licenses for growers and processors and 50 licenses for dispensaries, the amounts were cut in half for what the department is calling phase one of Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program.

Collins acknowledged Wednesday that department officials don’t yet have a timetable for granting the remaining licenses. They are hoping to have a better sense of where the state’s patients are located now that the registry is open. That information will help guide the process of locating the remaining facilities.

In the meantime, a distant cloud hangs over medical marijuana across the nation: Marijuana is still considered a Schedule I drug, meaning the U.S. Justice Department deems it to have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Trump administration Attorney General Jeff Sessions remains an opponent of marijuana use and has signaled that he wants to curtail the spread of legalization. There are fears that his efforts could lead to a crackdown not just on recreational use, but on medical use as well.

Asked whether that is a concern for Pennsylvania, Levine merely reiterated why state officials believe the program is important.

“I think the main message is that this is for the patients,” Levine said. “This is one more tool in our medical toolbox to treat patients.”

State Sen. Mike Folmer (R-Lebanon), who was a co-sponsor of the medical marijuana legislation, expressed joy at “how much has been accomplished” since Wolf signed the bill into law last year.

“So many people think that I got involved in this because I was a cancer survivor,” Folmer said. “No. I did this because it was the right thing to do.”

DOH Approved Practitioners 11-1-17 by Roger DuPuis on Scribd