Pot growers, teaching hospitals at odds

firm Hawke McKeon & Sniscak, which is representing the group of six growers and nine dispensary owners.

“But the regulations don’t match the law or put the right emphasis on research,” Ms. Cassel said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health declined to comment on the suit.

Executives for the current growers and dispensaries would not speak on the record, saying they feared retribution from the health department.

Several executives complained that they had spent millions to win their permits in the first phase of a grueling and competitive process. There were 177 companies that applied for the first 12 grower permits. The applications were reviewed and scored by anonymous teams of state-appointed experts.

The state is preparing to accept applications for another round of commercial growers and dispensaries that will be similarly scored. When Phase 2 of the process is over, the state will host 25 commercial growers and a total of 150 commercial dispensaries.

The research component would add an additional eight growers and 48 dispensaries.

But many of the research producers that strike contracts with the teaching hospitals won’t have to go through the competitive ordeal. That makes the current growers irate. The complaint maintains that only the state — and not the research hospitals — should have the power to decide who can participate.

Under the current regulations, the teaching hospitals would choose their own marijuana partners.

Many already have paired up.

For example, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine is linked with Franklin Labs, whose CEO, John Hanger, was once a gubernatorial candidate and adviser to Gov. Tom Wolf.

Drexel University is said to have signed an agreement with Prime Wellness of Pennsylvania, whose parent company, Acreage Holdings, recently added former U.S. Rep. John Boehner of Ohio and former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld to its board of directors.

Franklin Labs and Prime Wellness were top scorers during Phase 1 and were granted permits to grow medical marijuana by the state.

The state hasn’t granted a single permit to the hospitals or the research growers.

The state is accepting applications from the teaching hospitals until May 24. The Department of Health is accepting applications from the aspiring research growers until July 12.