RECOMMENDING CANNABIS IN PENNSYLVANIA

To recommend cannabis to patients in Pennsylvania, you must register on the Pennsylvania Department of Health portal.

Pennsylvania physicians who have an active medical license in this Commonwealth in accordance with the Medical Practice Act of 1985 (or the Osteopathic Medical Practice Act, are eligible to apply to be included on the registry of practitioners who can certify patients for medical marijuana. They must apply for registration with the Department of Health, and complete the required Department of Health-approved training.

To participate in the program, an MD or DO must:

  • First, create a profile in the Department of Health Physician Registry
  • Validation of the physician's Pennsylvania medical license with the Department of State will occur.
  • Complete the required 4-hour training provided by one of the 7 Department of Health-approved training entities, when prompted via email.
  • Finally, receive an email from the program with the next steps and when approval has been granted to begin issuing certifications, which may take up to 2 months.

Eligible Medical Conditions include:

  • Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
  • Anxiety disorders
  • Autism
  • Cancer, including remission therapy
  • Crohn's disease
  • Damage to the nervous tissue of the central nervous system (brain-spinal cord) with objective neurological indication of intractable spasticity, and other associated neuropathies
  • Dyskinetic and spastic movement disorders
  • Epilepsy
  • Glaucoma
  • HIV / AIDS
  • Huntington's disease
  • Inflammatory bowel disease
  • Intractable seizures
  • Multiple sclerosis
  • Neurodegenerative diseases
  • Neuropathies
  • Opioid use disorder for which conventional therapeutic interventions are contraindicated or ineffective, or for which adjunctive therapy is indicated in combination with primary therapeutic interventions
  • Parkinson's disease
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder
  • Severe chronic or intractable pain of neuropathic origin or severe chronic or intractable pain
  • Sickle cell anemia
  • Terminal illness
  • Tourette syndrome 

Medical professionals have a legal right to recommend cannabis as a treatment in any state, as protected by the First Amendment. Established by a 2004 United States Supreme Court decision to uphold earlier federal court rulings that found doctors and their patients have a fundamental Constitutional right to freely discuss treatment options.

More resources for medical professionals can be found here.