Pa. Department Of Health Sues To Keep Medical Marijuana Program Data Secret

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HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Department of Health is suing Spotlight PA again in an effort to keep private information about how patients got their medical marijuana cards.

This time, the Department of Health was reluctant to disclose how often individual doctors approve patients for medical programs, information that can help identify non-conformances that could circumvent or violate state regulations.

Spotlight PA seeks this information pursuant to the state's Open Records Act, and the editors specifically note that they are looking for information about doctors, not patient names.

In January, an independent government agency ruled that records, to the extent they exist, should be made public, citing a recent Commonwealth Court ruling in which judges supported broad interpretations of the privacy provisions of the law. . .

The State Public Records Office has given the Department of Health 30 days to release relevant records. But the board of health refused and appealed to Commonwealth Court this month, a move that is likely to delay access to the records for at least a few months, if not forever.

Hiding such information makes it difficult to understand how medical marijuana laws work, said Melissa Melevski, a media relations attorney for the Pennsylvania News Association, of which Spotlight PA is a member.

"Data can show successes and failures and we need to account for that in policy," Melevski told Spotlight PA. "And unless we can understand how the law works by looking at your data, it's very difficult to advocate for the changes that are needed."

Doctors are at the heart of the multi-billion dollar medical cannabis industry. Each year, hundreds of thousands of patients require a doctor's license to obtain a medical marijuana card and buy it at pharmacies. More than 1,800 licensed doctors participated in the program through November, according to the department. Initial patient certification typically costs $125-$225, and certification must be renewed at least annually.

In November, several members of the state's Medical Cannabis Advisory Council questioned the amount of screening patients receive from some physicians when they are approved for certification, echoing survey results.

The department's lawsuit against Spotlight PA is the latest example of the agency trying to prevent the documents from being released, first under Wolf and now under Democrat Josh Shapiro, who took office last month.

The Wolf administration sued Spotlight PA in September 2021 after the state's Open Records Authority ordered the department to release data showing why patients qualify for the state's medical marijuana program. But the Commonwealth Court rejected many of the division's arguments and argued that the Medical Cannabis Act's data protections apply to individual patients, not aggregated data.

Ultimately, the department provided records of more than one million medical marijuana certificates made from November 2017 through August 2022. Analysis of this PA Spotlight data and subsequent research suggests that anxiety disorders are the main reason why patients qualify for the program despite limited opportunities. mixed evidence that cannabis helps treat anxiety.

In terms of medical data, the Department of Health argued that the information was not publicly available under the Medical Cannabis Act and that it "fully falls within the definition of confidential information". The Office of Open Records disagrees.

Paula Knudsen Burke, a lawyer at the Committee of Journalists for Press Freedom, said precedent from last year's Commonwealth Court ruling on qualifications should apply to the publication of aggregated data on doctors. The state medical marijuana program has helped Pennsylvanians and politicians better understand how this relatively new program works,” said Burke, who volunteered for Spotlight PA in a Commonwealth Court case last year.

Melewski, of the Pennsylvania News Association, agreed that Commonwealth Court precedent should be applied to medical data. "Melewski said of the health department.

In 2021, the Department of Health sued another reporter seeking information about the number of medical cannabis certificates issued by doctors. The case is ongoing and has been referred to Commonwealth Court in a qualifying condition case before the August 2022 verdict.

And in another case, the department sued Spotlight PA earlier this month after being ordered by the State's Open Records Board to release records, if any, and determine the number of certificates issued by certain sanctioned doctors for the department. . This case is also pending.

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