Pennsylvania House Passes Bill To Strengthen Medical Marijuana Program Oversight And Testing Requirements

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has approved a bill meant to strengthen safety standards and oversight of the state’s medical marijuana program as lawmakers separately work to advance adult-use legalization.

On Monday, the chamber passed the medical cannabis legislation from House Health Committee Chairman Dan Frankel (D), a key advocate for marijuana reform in the legislature, in a 194-8 vote.

While Pennsylvania’s medical cannabis program was enacted nearly a decade ago, lawmakers say the new measure, which now heads to the Senate, is necessary to improve testing compliance, product audits and lab inspections, among other aspects of the industry.

An earlier version of the proposal passed the House in a 196-6 vote last session.

“This legislation will help ensure that testing labs remain independent, transparent and accountable, so that we can prevent the types of issues that have undermined patient trust in other states,” Frankel said in a press release on Monday.

Today, an overwhelming bipartisan majority of the House passed my bill that would bolster oversight of medical marijuana labs. If it’s made in PA and sold in PA, it should meet Pennsylvania’s standards for safety – period.
https://t.co/f7dYRVltDg pic.twitter.com/BJMAP7DSWS

— State Rep. Dan Frankel (@RepDanFrankel) March 17, 2025

The bill is largely responsive to concerns expressed in a series of hearings in the Health Committee that the sponsor chairs. Experts have testified on issues such as inaccurate product labeling and contamination of marijuana products in other states programs.

If enacted, Frankel’s bill would require the state Department of Health to provide more stringent lab testing, monitor cannabis products’ potency and purity and enhance reporting requirements to ensure that safety standards are met for patients.

“The availability of medical marijuana has brought relief and healing to hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians since 2018, when dispensaries first opened their doors, and those patients deserve to know what they’re getting,” Frankel said. “This is about ensuring they have the same level of confidence in medical marijuana as they do in any other prescribed treatment.”

In opening remarks ahead of Monday’s floor vote, the lawmaker stressed that “one of the core promises of our medical marijuana program is safety.”

“These products help thousands of Pennsylvanians manage chronic pain, battle cancer and give children with epilepsy a chance for a better life,” he said. “Patients and families trust that when they pick up their prescription, it meets the highest safety standards. But here’s the reality: Even in regulated markets, that trust can be misplaced. And we know from other states that the very labs meant to ensure safety can be the problem.”

“We have an opportunity to get ahead of these issues before they become our issues,” he said.

The bill’s advancement out of the House comes amid heightened interest within the legislature over the prospect of legalizing marijuana for adult use, which Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) called for again as part of his latest budget request.

In a video interview released on Monday, the governor emphasized that the state is “losing out” to others that have already enacted the reform, while maintaining a policy that’s enriched the illicit market.

“I think it’s an issue of freedom and liberty. I mean, if folks want to smoke, they should be able to do so in a safe and legal way,” he said. “We should shut down the black market—and, by the way, every state around us is doing it. Pennsylvanians are driving to those other states and paying taxes in those other states.”

Frankel and Rep. Rick Krajewski (D) also announced in December that they plan to file adult-use legalization legislation, emphasizing that there’s a “moral obligation” to repair harms of criminalization while also raising revenue as neighboring state markets mature.

Frankel said sponsors hope for a vote on the bill “sometime early spring,” though questions remain as to whether the legislature would be willing to get behind the push to end cannabis prohibition, especially through the state-run sales model he is proposing.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s Republican attorney general recently said he wants to be a “voice for potential public safety risks” of enacting the governor’s proposal—though he said his office would be ready to enforce the new law if lawmakers did vote to pass it.

The state’s agriculture secretary separately told lawmakers that he’s fully confident that his department is in a “really good” position to oversee an adult-use marijuana program if lawmakers act.

Meanwhile, last month, top Pennsylvania police and health officials told lawmakers they are prepared to implement marijuana legalization if the legislature moves forward with the reform—and that they stand ready to work together as the details of legislation to achieve it are crafted.

Separately, amid the growing calls for marijuana legalization in Pennsylvania, a GOP state senator said prohibition has been a “disaster,” and a regulated sales model for cannabis—similar to how alcohol and tobacco are handled—could serve as an effective alternative.

Voters are ready to see that policy change, according to a poll released last month.

The survey, commissioned by the advocacy group ResponsiblePA, found that nearly 7 in 10 voters in the state support the reform—including a majority of Republicans. And 63 percent want to see the legislature enact the reform this year, rather than delaying it.

A Republican Pennsylvania senator also recently defended the push to legalize and regulate marijuana, calling it “the most conservative stance” on the issue.

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While Shapiro once again included a proposal to enact cannabis legalization in his latest budget request, there’s been mixed feedback from legislators—some of whom want to see the governor more proactively come to the table to discuss possible pathways for reform and others skeptical about the possibility of advancing the issue this session.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Scott Martin (R), for example, said last month that he doesn’t “see any path whatsoever” to enacting legalization in line with the governor’s plan.

At the same time, the state secretary for the Department of Revenue has predicted that Shapiro’s proposal could be passed during the current budget cycle, indicating that he feels reform could start to be implemented within months.

House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D), meanwhile, said following the governor’s budget speech that “there is real diversity of opinions among our members,” likely referencing split perspectives on regulatory models, with some lawmakers pushing for a state-run cannabis program.

He also said recently that he feels the time is ripe to advance marijuana reform this session, saying “it strikes me as abdicating our responsibility to protect our communities and our children, and at the same time, we are losing revenue that is going to go into our neighboring states.”

Key lawmakers have expressed skepticism about the governor’s ability to see through the cannabis reform he’s proposing, however.

“The governor needs to lead on something. If he wants something done, he needs to lead on it,” Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R) said. “He can’t throw an idea out there—which he did last year—and say, ‘Let the legislature figure it out. I’ll sign it. Then I’ll go do press conferences all over the state.’”

The House minority leader was also asked about the prospect of enacting various of the governor’s budget proposals, including marijuana. And he said while he’s “not going to speak for the governor,” there’s “one person that has the ability to bring those deals together—and that is the governor.”

He referenced recent remarks from Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R) who said there are logistical challenges to advancing legalization that he’s unsure lawmakers will be able to overcome.

The feedback from GOP lawmakers is reminiscent of earlier criticism from the caucus about the governor, who they’ve claimed has made the call for reform without meaningfully engaging with the legislature about how to get it done.

The Republican chair of a key Senate committee recently said he’s expecting to take up legislation this year that would make Pennsylvania the 25th in the U.S. to legalize adult-use marijuana. He also thinks that more of his GOP colleagues could get on board with the reform soon than have in the past.

While many legalization advocates and observers think Pennsylvania is among the most likely states to pass a recreational marijuana law this session, the devil is in the details. One lawmaker has floated a relatively simple bill to decriminalize personal possession, while two others plan to introduce more sweeping legislation that would legalize through a state-run system of stores.

Sen. Dan Laughlin (R) last spring introduced a bill meant to remove state barriers to medical marijuana patients carrying firearms. While it didn’t move forward, the lawmaker said in the recent interview that he believes political support for legalization more broadly has been building.

The senator said an event last May that the state is “getting close” to legalizing marijuana, but the job will only get done if House and Senate leaders sit down with the governor and “work it out.”

A separate decriminalization measure, meanwhile, from Pennsylvania Rep. Danilo Burgos (D), would make simple possession of cannabis a summary offense punishable by a $100 fine without the threat of jail time. Currently, low-level possession is considered a misdemeanor, carrying a penalty of up to 30 days in jail, a maximum $500 fine or both.

Additionally, in September, bipartisan Reps. Aaron Kaufer (R) and Kinkead formally introduced a bipartisan marijuana legalization bill, alongside 15 other cosponsors.

In July, the governor said his administration and lawmakers would “come back and continue to fight” for marijuana legalization and other policy priorities that were omitted from budget legislation he signed into law that month.

As for medical marijuana, the governor in October signed a bill to correct an omission in a law that unintentionally excluded dispensaries from state-level tax relief for the medical marijuana industry.

About three months after the legislature approved the underlying budget bill that Shapiro signed containing tax reform provisions as a partial workaround to a federal ban on tax deductions for cannabis businesses, the Pennsylvania legislature passed corrective legislation.

Separately, at a Black Cannabis Week event hosted recently by the Diasporic Alliance for Cannabis Opportunities (DACO) in October, Street and Reps. Chris Rabb (D), Amen Brown (D), Darisha Parker (D) and Napoleon Nelson (D) joined activists to discuss their legislative priorities and motivations behind advancing legalization in the Keystone State.

Other lawmakers have also emphasized the urgency of legalizing as soon as possible given regional dynamics, while signaling that legislators are close to aligning House and Senate proposals.

As for cannabis and gun ownership, Laughlin had been looking at the issue for more than a year before introducing last year’s bill, writing last February to the state’s acting police commissioner to “strongly encourage” he review a federal ruling that the U.S. government’s ban on gun ownership by people who use marijuana is unconstitutional.

Since then, further federal court cases have questioned the constitutionality of the federal firearm ban. A federal judge in El Paso, for example, recently ruled that the ongoing ban on gun ownership by habitual marijuana users was unconstitutional in the case of a defendant who earlier pleaded guilty to the criminal charge. The court allowed the man to withdraw the plea and ordered that the indictment against him be dismissed.

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