HARRISBURG — When Pennsylvania lawmakers legalized medical cannabis in 2016, they struck an unusual deal: Physicians can approve patients for the program, but they are banned from advertising that power.
Lawmakers feared advertising would encourage thousands of patients solely seeking a medical marijuana card to flood the same doctor’s office or would motivate physicians to excessively approve patients for profit.
Or, as one marijuana legalization advocate put it, lawmakers didn’t want “pot doctors.”
But six years later, that rule — and the inconsistent enforcement that followed — has given an advantage to largely unregulated certification businesses that stand to rake in millions of dollars each year courting Pennsylvania medical marijuana patients, a Spotlight PA investigation has found.
