Walk into a medical marijuana dispensary in New Jersey and the first thing to hit you is the stink.

Weed’s scent is a sour blast that seems to reek of citrus, diesel, and skunk. At the Garden State Dispensary in Woodbridge, Middlesex County, charcoal air purifiers — encased in gleaming steel and larger than jet engines — are strategically placed through the facility. It’s hard to say whether their presence tempers the odor, which is generated by thousands of cannabis plants growing under lights in the same building.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Health announced the winners of 27 medical cannabis dispensary permits on Thursday. The licensees now have six months to become fully operational, with medical marijuana sales expected to begin in the state sometime next year.

Pennsylvania’s decision last week to award a dozen permits to grow marijuana has ignited a firestorm of controversy, with many losers decrying a lack of transparency and threatening legal action that could delay getting medicine to patients for years.

Pennsylvania handed out licenses to 12 companies to grow marijuana for medicinal uses last week, and is expected to license producers and dispensaries soon. However, it could be tough for those businesses to get bank accounts.

Although Pennsylvania has legalized medical marijuana, it's still illegal at the federal level. That means all of the proceeds from growing, producing or selling it are illegal as far as the federal government is concerned.

That leaves banks that accept proceeds for such activity at risk of federal prosecution.

The Department of Health announced the winners of 12 grower/processor permits as part of Pennsylvania's nascent medical marijuana industry.

John Collins, director of the state's Office of Medical Marijuana, said the department received 457 applications in total, including 177 prospective grower/processors and 280 for dispensaries.

The 12 grower/processor permit awardees are included below:

As Pennsylvania prepares to award its first licenses for the fledgling medical marijuana industry, Lehigh University intends to partner with one of the potential growers in the Lehigh Valley to study the effect of the drug on children with autism.

While some parents of autistic children have preached the benefits of cannabis for years, Lehigh's Dean of Education Gary Sasso confirmed Monday that the university wants to collect some of the first quantitative data on the controversial drug therapy. Pennsylvania is one of the few states that specifically allows children with autism to be treated with cannabis.

Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf isn’t happy with a letter that surfaced this week from Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

One of the chief concerns about constructing medical marijuana dispensaries and growing facilities in Philadelphia is security. In other states that have legalized medical cannabis, growing sites have become targets for break-ins — but not necessarily because fiending burglars want to get their hands on sweet, medically acceptable kush.

Dispensaries and growers are often targets because of how most of them conduct business: Cash. Most major banks won’t work with marijuana-related businesses for fear of running afoul of federal regulations that stipulate marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug. And that’s expected to create real problems for marijuana-related businesses here in Pennsylvania, as it has elsewhere.

Philadelphia’s Mayor, who said marijuana drug testing keeps people out of the job market, is open to talking about alternatives.

Philadelphia government can’t legalize marijuana but it does have the flexibility to make life easier for cannabis consumers by, for example, banning the THC drug test for certain jobs, or, at the very least, prohibiting employers from testing potential employees until a conditional job offer is made, similar to the ban-the-box movement which favors returning citizens.

In West Virginia, a new law includes a provision that requires regulators to encourage minority-owned business owners to apply for growing licenses. (Photo by Heath Korvola/ Digital Vision/Getty Images)

In some states that have legalized marijuana, officials are trying to entice nonwhite citizens to join the cannabis industry with breaks aimed at making up for the toll unequal drug enforcement has taken on Black and brown communities.

So far, the booming industry has overwhelmingly line the pockets of white cannabis sellers.