Suddenly it seems as if proposals to establish medical marijuana growing facilities are sprouting up all over the place.
It’s likely that what’s driving this green-rush is the Feb. 20 start date the Pennsylvania Department of Health set for permit applications to get in on the ground floor of what is fast-becoming a $7.1 billion industry nationwide and is expected grow to as much as $1 billion here in Pennsylvania in the coming years.
No fewer than four proposals for marijuana-growing facilities in Montgomery County, and one in Delaware County have cropped up in the last two months.
* The first was proposed last month for a five-acre parcel in Bridgeport on West Boro Line Road, where Conshohocken-based Black Lab Botanicals LLC wants to establish a grow facility.
* Then, in West Pottsgrove Township, a Haverford-based company called Holistic Farms announced plans to construct a $10 million 100,000-square-foot facility on the site of the former Stanley G. Flagg brass plant off Old Reading Pike – vacant for more than 10 years.
* Just down the road, Bunker Botanicals LLC on Thursday night proposed an underground 50,000-square-foot grow facility off Porter Road in a vacant Cold War-era communications bunker designed to withstand a nuclear attack.
* And just a little further down the road, Keystone Medical Cannabis LLC was before the Limerick Township Board of Supervisors Tuesday seeking support to open a growing and processing facility in a boarded up building at 880 Enterprise Drive.
* Not to be left out, on Thursday night, the Aston Township Commissioners in Delaware County approved a conditional use permit for Medgarden LLC to establish of a marijuana-growing and wholesale distribution facility at 414 Knowlton Road.
All five proposals stepped into the spotlight when they appeared before the elected bodies in each municipality seeking a letter of support to submit with their application to the state for one of the two growing permits that will be issued in the eight-county Southeast Pennsylvania region created by Act 16 to distribute them across the Commonwealth.
All five received support from their respective municipalities eager to get in on the ground floor of a burgeoning industry.
Law signed last year
Gov. Tom Wolf signed Act 16 in April and it outlines the rules for growing facilities, dispensaries, the forms the medicine which can be manufactured, which medical conditions the medicine can be prescribed for, as well as rules for doctors and patients to participate in the program.
The legislation divided Pennsylvania into six regions and, like the casino licenses doled out in 2006, has limited the number of licenses for both dispensaries and grow/processing facilities in each region.
With two slotted for the Southeast region, that means there are already three more applications in the eight-county Southeast region than will ultimately be approved.
“The conversations have definitely started across the state in a number of communities,” said April Hutcheson, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
Given that Monday was the first day for applications to be submitted, Hutcheson said it’s too soon to say how many there will be, or if one region will see more than another.
But she did confirm that Pennsylvania Health Secretary Karen Murphy expects about 900 applications statewide – from which 12 will be chosen.
In addition to only two grow facilities per region, Act 16 limits the number of dispensaries to 50 statewide, 10 of which will be located in the Southeast region.
“Most players coming to Pennsylvania for these permits are already in the business in other states and have capital and experience to invest,” Donna Fabry, a community planner from the Montgomery County Planning Commission, told the Pottstown Metropolitan Area Regional Planning Committee at the Feb. 22 meeting.
That is certainly the case with the application in West Pottsgrove.
Morgan said his partners have experience in Maryland, Washington D.C., and Massachusetts, where medical marijuana operations are already up and running.
And perhaps that’s why Whaling and his group are emphasizing the “all-Pennsylvania” nature of their operation.
“We are concerned those from outside the state will take advantage of the law and take those revenues home,” said Whaling.
Not about getting high
The product dispensaries will distribute will come in the form of a pill, lotion, gel, cream, tincture or liquid – none of which will produce the high that comes from smoking marijuana leaves.
The chemicals – THC and CDB – are extracted from the cannabis plants, which are then disposed of in a highly regulated process, said Keith Morgan, who is part of the team proposing the West Pottsgrove facility.
“It’s not the pot growing on your window sill,” said Limerick Supervisors’ Chairwoman Kara Shuler. “It’s pharmaceutical-like in that sense. I want people to get passed that stigma of it’s just rolling a joint and you smoke.”
“Each seed has its own bar code and you have to be able to account for everything,” Morgan told the West Pottsgrove Commissioners during the Feb. 15 meeting at which they voted not to oppose the project.
“One of the things you have to remember is we’re making medicine,” Geoff Whaling told the Lower Pottsgrove Commissioners. “It’s pharma-grade.”
Local patients are waiting
“My son is 14 and has chronic pain from a medical condition he was born with. I have already applied and received approval from the state for him to receive (medical marijuana products),” Sherry Somogyi Strock posted in response to a query posted on The Mercury’s Facebook page.
“Unfortunately we cannot get it at this time,” she wrote. “But it would allow him to return to school and a more normal life.”
“I don’t plan on it, but I believe my wife who has suffered from chronic migraines for the past 10 years, who’s been to every doctor, and has had tried every ‘drug’ available to try and cure them with no avail will,” posted Pottstown resident Joe Reindel. “I am overjoyed this is coming to PA, and local at that.”
“I have adhesive arachnoiditis, spasticity, autonomic dysfunction, and central pain syndrome. I have tried traditional medications with little help,” posted Sherry Lynch Gallagher of Spring City.
“I also have an implanted pump for spasticity, and the invasion in my spinal column can trigger migraines. Yes, I plan to try medicinal marijuana; I will do anything within reason to help get some normalcy back!” Gallagher wrote.
“I would definitely consider it for my 8-year-old son verses the ‘chemo’ drugs they want to start him on for his Crohn’s disease,” Elizabeth Kane posted.
“I suffer from Crohn’s disease and am looking forward to trying it for not only my head to toe pain but hoping it helps with getting my disease into remission,” posted Lynn Snovel Harvey.
Patients, doctors must register
It’s not immediately clear how the strong the market for these products will be, although Whaling, co-founder of the national advocacy group Coalition for Access Now which lobbied for the law, said “there is a great demand for this in Pennsylvania.”
He estimated the initial market to be between 65,000 to 120,000 patients statewide.
That’s because in addition to grow facilities, and dispensaries having to have licenses, so do the patients and the doctors, so it will be some time before everyone who wants the treatments can get them.
Hutcheson said patients have to be certified by a under whose physician whose care they have been, and the doctors issuing the certifications – called a red card – also must register with the state.
That is one way the state will collect data on the need, which will in turn inform how many additional grow facility and dispensary permits will be issued, said Hutcheson, who said the state has set up an informational web site on the program.
It ain’t cheap
Getting into this business is not for the faint of heart, or for those light in the wallet.
To apply for a permit for a grow/processing facility costs $10,000, not refundable, as well as proof of $2 million capital – $500,000 of which has to be cash or on deposit in a financial institution.
All applicants then pay a $200,000 application fee which is refunded if the application is rejected.
Similarly, applying for a dispensary permit requires a $5,000 non-refundable application fee as well as another $30,000 fee which is refunded if the application is rejected.
And dispensary applicants also have to show proof of $150,000 in capital.
The potential risk is more than financial; federal prosecutions could be involved.
Still a federal crime
President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that his administration will begin to crack down on marijuana use creates a whole different level of uncertainty for investors, doctors and patients.
And the state health department makes that clear in its materials.
“The U.S. Department of Justice has the authority to enforce civil and criminal federal laws relating to marijuana possession and use, regardless of state law. Growing, distributing, and/or possessing marijuana in any capacity, except through a federally-approved research program, is a violation of federal law, and no state or local law provides a legal defense to a violation of federal law,” the state site notes.
“However, it may be unlikely that federal authorities would bring civil enforcement actions or criminal investigations and prosecutions against growers/ processors, dispensaries, physicians, seriously ill individuals or caregivers as long as they are acting pursuant to the Act,” the health department wrote.
However, that observation was posted before the Trump’s election.
How much local control?
In addition to all the state regulations, and potential federal entanglements that loom, applicants who want to establish a dispensary or grow facility must also deal with local zoning and land development ordinances – something many municipalities are just beginning to face.
Hutcheson said the only restrictions the state puts on both growing facilities and dispensaries is that they cannot be within 1,000 feet of a school.
Many aspects of the law were under review when Fabry made a presentation to the regional planners who are grappling with the question of whether to zone for it on a region-wide basis, or leave it up to the individual municipalities.
“From a zoning standpoint, the grow facilities are best sited in an industrial district,” said Fabry.
“Grow facilities are intensive users of electricity and water. Most medical marijuana is grown hydroponically,” she said. “So they need to be located where that infrastructure is available.”
As for the dispensaries, they can be in a commercial or downtown district, they just need to be included as an allowed use, said John Cover, section chief for the Montgomery County Planning Commission.
“I would suggest that you include some design requirements, so it is not a windowless bunker in the middle of your downtown district,” he told the regional planners.
Bill Soumis, from the North Coventry Planning Commission, asked why special dispensaries are necessary at all.
“If it’s just a pill or a lotion, why can’t you just buy it at your local CVS? Why do we need a special dispensary?” he asked. “It seems to me like they’re going overboard.”
But in addition to requiring dispensaries, the state even regulates the signs out front, said Fabry.
Looking at a picture of a New Jersey dispensary named “Greenleaf Compassion Center,” Fabry joked “you’re not going to see a marijuana leaf in the window or Bob Marley and his dreadlocks in any PA dispensaries.”
“Sounds like we’re going down the path of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board,” said Upper Pottsgrove Commissioners Chairman Elwood Taylor.
Ultimately, Taylor observed, “it’s just a big business.”
Hutcheson said “we’re encouraged to see communities and companies moving forward with providing medicine to others with severe medical conditions.”
