Editorial: Health Department needs to be crystal clear about marijuana data

Pennsylvania has a data problem.

A Commonwealth Court ruling recently directed the Department of Health to provide information on its medical marijuana program.

The court got involved as Spotlight PA has tried to investigate the state’s decision to allow medical marijuana to treat opioid addiction. The Department of Health has spent a year trying to stymie this request, but the court rejected the state’s arguments.

This isn’t the first time the state has tried to keep information from becoming public. It is an all-too-common pattern.

It isn’t just the Department of Health. Other departments suffer from similar aversions to the truth. Remember when the Department of Labor and Industry acknowledged it had been overcharging interest to people who had been overpaid unemployment benefits and had to pay it back? Labor and Industry confirmed that in 2021 only after Spotlight asked questions. The mistake had been ongoing since 2006 and was uncovered in 2016.

It’s not just the Wolf administration. Other governors have been just as happy to keep data under lock and key. It’s just not the executive branch because the Legislature is good at keeping expenses hidden whenever possible.

But the marijuana issue seems to show the Department of Health flailing for a rationale not to provide the information, arriving at things like patient privacy and potential for employees to be charged with crimes. This is ludicrous.

Spotlight is looking at the state’s claims about the benefits of medical marijuana with regard to opioid addiction. That doesn’t require identifying information from someone’s medical records. Senior Judge Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter agreed, calling the argument “undeveloped” and saying the department missed the point.

But why is the state making controversial claims while denying access to the data? How could the department not have anticipated that such requests would be made? Making claims without support is less what you expect from a state agency and more what you get from a multilevel marketing operation promising miracle cures with essential oils.

This isn’t to say the state is wrong about the claims. Maybe medical marijuana can benefit opioid addiction the same way it promises relief for glaucoma and chemotherapy side effects. But advising addicts to replace a prescription drug with another regulated substance without concrete evidence seems strange. Fighting it for a year is stranger.

The best way to win trust is with transparency. Pennsylvania has trouble with that kind of clarity in the best circumstances.

But when it comes to their health, people need the best, clearest information possible to make decisions. If the Department of Health can’t do that with medical marijuana information, maybe it shouldn’t be involved with cannabis at all.