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HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Department of Health would be empowered to impose new limits on doctors who want to practice in the state’s medical marijuana program under legislation prompted by a Spotlight PA investigation.

Earlier this month, a group of Republican lawmakers in the state House of Representatives introduced a bill that would give regulators the power to impose a series of conditions on individual doctors who want to certify medical marijuana patients. In Pennsylvania, patients need a doctor’s approval to obtain a medical marijuana card and purchase cannabis from dispensaries.

Under the bill, the department would be able to put a doctor on probation and limit the number of patient certificates the doctor can issue during a certain period of time determined by the department. The Department of Health can also impose reporting requirements and require the doctor to be supervised by another doctor.

The move follows a Spotlight PA investigation, published in August, that found the health department has rarely blocked practitioners from joining the state’s medical marijuana program based on prior discipline. That includes a doctor who received a federal prison sentence in the early 2000s after pleading guilty to drug distribution charges.

The survey also found a wide disparity in how often some doctors approve patients for medical marijuana cards.

Of the roughly 1,300 doctors who issued at least one medical marijuana certification in 2022, most issued fewer than 100, department records show. But some doctors issued several thousand that year, and three issued more than 11,000.

The bill’s lead sponsor, state Rep. Tim Twardzik, R-Schuylkill County, cited Spotlight PA’s investigation, saying it “revealed flaws in the medical marijuana law,” particularly related to the department’s “limited authority to impose conditions or deny applications based on a physician’s prior behavior.”

The legislation would also bar doctors from joining the program as practitioners if they have received a conviction under a state drug law within the past five years.

The bill leaves some details of oversight up to the department, such as which doctors deserve extra scrutiny. To move forward in the Democrat-controlled state House, the bill would need to be considered by the Health Committee. State Rep. Kathy Rapp, R-Warren County, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, is the panel’s minority chair.

But state Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill — who, as committee chairman, decides which bills are considered — previously told Spotlight PA that there are more important issues for the health of medical marijuana patients than “underqualified doctors.”

In an interview in August, Twardzik acknowledged the difficult road this, or any legislation, faces in Harrisburg.

“It’s interesting in this job,” he told Spotlight PA, adding that he’s been told, “once you have an idea for a bill, it takes about six years to get there.”

Still, he said, every once in a while lawmakers find important issues that they fix right away.

The state’s medical marijuana law currently gives the department the authority to determine which doctors can certify patients, and it is responsible for determining that each doctor is qualified. But the law does not specifically address whether the department could impose the kinds of additional restrictions and oversight on certain doctors that Twardzik suggests.

Earlier this year, a lawyer for the department outlined limits to its oversight authority, as Spotlight previously reported. In an administrative filing, the attorney wrote that the state’s medical marijuana laws and regulations do not give the Bureau of Medical Marijuana “the same investigative resources or authority to require additional requirements to prove compliance” that other agencies, including a licensing board, have.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health told Spotlight PA that the agency does not comment on pending legislation.

Twardzik’s proposal could face opposition from the state’s cannabis industry. Meredith Buettner Schneider, executive director of the Pennsylvania Cannabis Coalition, told Spotlight PA that she is concerned the proposed power to limit the number of medical certifications could limit access for patients.

Others have called for changes in response to Spotlight PA’s investigation in August.

Jeff Hanley, executive director of the Commonwealth Prevention Alliance, a nonprofit organization focused on substance abuse issues, said the story highlighted the critical need for “a comprehensive overhaul” of Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program. He suggested looking into a number of issues that have been the subject of previous Spotlight PA investigations, including the list of qualifying conditions for patients, advertising regulations and the practices of third-party companies that connect doctors and patients.

William Stauffer, a prominent Pennsylvania recovery advocate, also weighed in, saying he hopes “the story is a wake-up call for state government and beyond.”

The story shows “a system where the harms associated with cannabis are relegated to an afterthought or perhaps a barrier to getting cannabis into the hands of as many people as possible,” Stauffer wrote.

Currently, only licensed physicians and doctors of osteopathic medicine can approve patients for a medical marijuana card in Pennsylvania, although the state health secretary has received recommendations to expand that list to include podiatrists and nurse practitioners. Physicians must apply for and complete a four-hour training course to be included in the department’s registry of approved physicians.

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