Pennsylvania regulators strip cultivator of medical cannabis license

Pennsylvania regulators revoked the permit of one of the state’s medical cannabis cultivators for allegedly violating production and security regulations.

The action against Agrimed Industries comes roughly a month after a surprise state inspection found numerous violations that raised concerns that some plants may have been diverted to the illicit market, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Agrimed, which has 30 days to appeal the state’s decision, reportedly entered into a management service agreement recently with Arizona-based Harvest.

A Harvest spokesperson did not immediately return requests for comment from the Inquirer.

According to the state’s inspection and a cease-and-desist letter issued in early July:

• Agrimed, which began operating in February 2018, was growing marijuana. However, its processing equipment was not operational, making the company unable to ship MMJ products to dispensaries.
• The company wasn’t able to produce records establishing what happened to the marijuana it grew. It also couldn’t produce security footage as required because its security cameras were often nonfunctional.

Under the cease-and-desist order, Agrimed was permitted to continue to grow plants to cultivate its strains.

However, the company was prohibited from removing anything from the plants without a department inspector on hand and was not permitted to deactivate its security equipment.