Green Analytics North, LLC v. Pa. Dep’t of Health, 298 A.3d 181 (Decided September 25, 2025) McCaffery, J.
Opinion by Justice McCaffery.
With the enactment of Act 16 of 2016, known as the Medical Marijuana Act (the Act or the MMA), Pennsylvania became the 24th state to legalize medical marijuana. The Act created a medical marijuana program and tasked Appellant, the Pennsylvania Department of Health, with implementing and regulating the program. In turn, the Department required growers and processors (in the parlance of the Act, “growers/processors”) of medical marijuana to employ one independent laboratory for testing harvest lots, and a second, distinct, independent laboratory for testing lots after processing. This is known as the “two-lab requirement.”
Appellees, entities approved by the Department to engage in the business of medical marijuana,1 contend the two-lab requirement exceeds the powers granted to the Department under the Act. Specifically, Appellees argue the two-lab requirement contradicts the Act’s command that growers/processors use “one or more independent laboratories” to test lots at harvest and final processing. See 35 P.S. § 10231.704 (Section 704). The Commonwealth Court agreed with Appellees, concluding Section 704 granted growers/processors a right to decide how many independent laboratories to use.
We disagree. The primary goal of the Act is to alleviate the suffering of seriously ill patients. This goal necessarily relies upon a focus on patient safety – unsafe medical marijuana, by definition, will only increase the suffering of such patients. Since the Commonwealth Court engaged in an acontextual analysis of Section 704 of the Act with
no consideration of patient safety, we reverse and remand to the Commonwealth Court for further consideration.
Under the Act, the Department has discretion in determining the number of laboratories necessary to achieve the explicit goals of the Act. Thus, contrary to the Commonwealth Court’s analysis, the two-lab requirement does not exceed the regulatory authority granted to the Department by the Act. We therefore remand this matter to the Commonwealth Court to apply the remaining steps of the Tire Jockey test.
Chief Justice Todd and Justices Donohue, Dougherty and Mundy join the opinion. Justice Wecht files a dissenting opinion in which Justice Brobson joins
