Guide to navigating Pennsylvania’s Medical Marijuana patient and caregiver regulations
November 13, 2017
Last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Health (“DOH”) published its finalized set of temporary regulations affecting patients and caregivers under the Commonwealth’s Medical Marijuana Act. The regulations, which will expire on November 12, 2019, address issues related to the identification cards needed to obtain medical marijuana in Pennsylvania as well as the responsibilities, capabilities, and limitations for patients and their caregivers.
Both patients and caregivers require identification cards in order to participate in Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana marketplace. While patients serve as the consumers of medical marijuana products, caregivers are those authorized to obtain medical marijuana products on behalf of their respective patients and provide them accordingly. A patient must provide the following information in his or her application for an identification card:
- The patient’s name, address, telephone number, email address, if applicable, and date of birth;
- Proof of residency in Pennsylvania, such as the patient’s Pennsylvania driver’s license number;
- The patient certification attesting to the patient’s serious medical condition, along with the name, address, and telephone number of the medical practitioner who issued it;
- The name, address, telephone number, email address, if applicable, and date of birth of up to two individuals designated by the patient to serve as caregivers;
- The appropriate fee, which for a standard application is $50.00, or proof of financial hardship; and
- The signature of the applicant and date signed, along with a statement swearing to the application’s truthfulness.
Caregivers need to provide the same information as patients in their applications, including their prospective patient’s certification and contact information, in addition to a criminal history search conducted by the Pennsylvania State Police and Federal Bureau of Investigation. A caregiver’s application will be denied if the caregiver has been convicted of a criminal offense relating to the sale or possession of drugs, narcotics, or controlled substances that occurred within the five years immediately preceding the submission of the application, or if the caregiver has a history of drug abuse or of diverting controlled substances or illegal drugs.
Information from the patient or caregiver’s application, along with information relating to the patient’s serious medical condition, will be included in the patient and caregiver registry, which will be maintained by DOH. Information on the registry is confidential and not subject to the Commonwealth’s Right-to-Know Law (65 P.S. §§ 67.101-67.3104).
If an application is approved, DOH issues the applicant an identification card, which can be used to obtain medical marijuana products from a licensed Pennsylvania dispensary. The identification card for either a patient or caregiver will include, as either displayed on the face of the card or encoded in a 2D barcode, the cardholder’s full name, address, photograph, unique identification number, designation as a patient or caregiver, as well as the issuance and expiration date of the identification card and any requirement or limitation on the patient certification concerning the recommended form of medical marijuana or limitation on the duration of use. The identification card will expire after a maximum of one year, or sooner if the patient no longer receives a therapeutic or palliative benefit from the use of medical marijuana, as determined by the patient’s medical practitioner. An application for renewal of the identification card must be submitted no later than thirty days prior to the card’s expiration date.
Once an applicant has obtained their identification card, he or she will be subject to certain limitations regarding purchase and possession of the drug. A cardholder may not obtain a different form or greater quantity of medical marijuana product from that indicated on the patient certification. Also, a cardholder may not possess more than a thirty-day supply of medical marijuana product at any one time, except that during the final seven days of a thirty-day period the cardholder may obtain a thirty day supply for the subsequent thirty day period.
DOH must be notified of certain occurrences, including a change of the cardholder’s name or address or if there is a severance in the patient-caregiver or patient-medical practitioner relationship.
Under the regulations, the Department may revoke or suspend a patient or caregiver’s identification card and remove the patient or caregiver from the registry if the patient or caregiver violates any Department regulations or the cardholder fails to visit a dispensary within sixty days of the issuance of the card.
Lastly, the temporary regulations also provide a special set of rules as they pertain to patients under the age of consent as well as caregivers under the age of 21-years-old. For more information, please see 28 Pa. Code §§ 1191.21-1191.33.
The Regulated Substances Blog is intended to keep readers current on developments regarding medical cannabis legalization and regulation and is not intended to be legal advice. If you have any questions, please contact author Samuel Franklin at sfranklin@eckertseamans.com, or contact Daniel Clearfield at dclearfield@eckertseamans.com, or any other member of our Regulated Substances Group.
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