PA medical cannabis company sues ‘gas station weed’ sellers, citing Inquirer investigation

OG Article By SAM WATSON Watch Today's LIVE Episode on X, and Rumble

and Youtube

August 28 2025

Legal dispensaries allege that smoke shops and wholesalers are engaging in an unfair trade practice: selling intoxicating marijuana under the guise of hemp.

A national cannabis provider in Pennsylvania is suing 10 hemp distributors over a commercial scheme it says amounts to illegally selling marijuana outside the state’s regulated medical system.

The complaint, filed Wednesday in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia, was brought by three subsidiaries of the Scranton-based Jushi Inc., which operates 18 licensed stores in Pennsylvania. It alleges that unregulated wholesalers and smoke shops are engaging in an unfair trade practice: selling intoxicating marijuana products under the guise of hemp, in a state that allows legal sales only in medical dispensaries.

“The influx of these illegal products into unregulated retail channels directly undermines the Commonwealth’s regulated medical marijuana program,” the plaintiffs wrote. “This scheme grants [smoke shops] a substantial and unlawful economic advantage, shifts compliance burdens onto lawful operators, endangers public health, and destabilizes the regulated market.”

The lawsuit cites findings from a July Inquirer investigation illustrating that unregulated hemp-derived products sold over the counter in Pennsylvania are often illegal and full of toxins.

Reporters purchased and tested 10 hemp flower samples from around the Philadelphia region, finding nine samples were well over the legal limit for Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient that creates the drug’s “high.” Seven appeared to be conventionally grown black market weed, and most contained toxic levels of mold, pesticides, or heavy metals.

Yet for years, hemp companies have sold these products in plain sight — at corner stores and gas stations — exploiting an apparent loophole in the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill, and giving rise to a multibillion-dollar cottage industry of intoxicating hemp products.

In Pennsylvania, the result is a system that resembles the over-the-counter recreational sales in states like New Jersey or California — but without the oversight that legal providers face. For seven years, state legislators in Harrisburg have debated whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

It’s a tale of two systems that puts Pennsylvania’s legal cannabis companies at a disadvantage, according to the Tuesday lawsuit.

“Intoxicating hemp sellers, by contrast, bear none of these costs or obligations, yet compete for the same consumers by selling untested, unregulated, and unlawfully potent intoxicants.” the complaint states.

The multistate dispensaries behind the litigation operate several Beyond/Hello medical marijuana stores around Center City, an area saturated with dozens of smoke shops selling unregulated hemp products.

Other defendants in the suit include distribution companies and online retailers, some of which are not based in Pennsylvania. The Jushi affiliates plan to add more defendants to the lawsuit, said Trent Woloveck, chief strategy officer for the umbrella company.

Woloveck said he hopes the civil suit will compel change in Pennsylvania, where police enforcement is currently scarce against scofflaw smoke shops.

“It’s definitely the first of its kind,” Woloveck said of the litigation, “but it definitely won’t be the last.”

No defense attorneys were listed in court records on Wednesday.