An Albany Supreme Court justice has rejected a petition to stop five new companies from manufacturing and dispensing medical marijuana across New York state, lodged by five other companies already in the medical marijuana business. The decision clears the way for the new companies to move into a highly regulated market that opened after legislators passed the Compassionate Care Act in 2014.

An association of five for-profit entities that were already state-authorized to manufacture and dispense medical marijuana levied in 2017 what Justice W. Brooks DeBow called a hybrid declaratory judgment/Article 78 proceeding. The action aimed to stop the new group of five from entering the market, and the existing group of five argued that the plain language of the Compassionate Care Act—found at state Public Health Law § 3365 (9)—permanently limited to five the number of manufacturing companies that could be sanctioned by Department Health of Commissioner Howard Zucker.