The phone calls and emails that come into the grassroots medical marijuana advocacy group's offices have a common thread running through them: They all end with asking the Campaign for Compassion for help.

Whether it was the man whose wife is fighting breast cancer, the father whose daughter was born with a genetic disease and lives with a colostomy and severe abdominal pain, the parent of a son diagnosed with an aggressive and difficult brain tumor, or the wife of a combat veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, all conclude with a plea for access to the medicine that could help them.

Campaign for Compassion's Cara Salemme said each call details one heartbreaking story after another of a Pennsylvanian with any of 17 medical conditions who wants access to the medical marijuana that Pennsylvania legalized last year.

The timeframe for accessing it was less than six months away but now the wait may be longer.

Bethlehem-based KeyStone ReLeaf, an unsuccessful applicant for one of the 12 grower/processor permits announced in June, filed a lawsuit on Sept. 8 in Commonwealth Court asking for an injunction to halt the implementation of Pennsylvania's entrance into this $6.7 billion nationwide industry.

The company is asking the court to order the state Department of Health to rescind all permits it awarded and start over.

That request also would affect the nearly 300 parents who have safe harbor letters that permit them to access out-of-state medical marijuana for their sick children without fear of prosecution.

"To delay this program one minute is selfish especially when it seems to be for personal gain," Salemme said at a Tuesday news conference in the Capitol Rotunda.

Campaign for Compassion has asked the court for permission to weigh in with an argument against Keystone's request, according to that group's founding member Christine Brann.

Brann joined others from her organization and Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery County, an architect of the medical marijuana law, during the news conference to call on KeyStone ReLeaf and other unsuccessful applicants contemplating a lawsuit to seek whatever remedy they consider appropriate but stop short of derailing the entire program.

"We are asking publicly this company and every company not seek relief that would harm patients," Leach said.

A message left for Bethlehem attorney Seth Tipton, who is representing KeyStone ReLeaf, went unreturned on Tuesday.

The health department, meanwhile, is "moving forward with a patient-focused medical marijuana program designed to give relief to the patients with the 17 serious medical conditions as outlined in the law as soon as we can," said department spokeswoman April Hutcheson.

Keystone ReLeaf is claiming that the state's process for awarding the 12 grower/processor and 27 dispensary permits was "infected by bias and favoritism" based on the secrecy that surrounded it.

That includes keeping secret the panel of judges who scored the more than 400 applications, scoring inconsistences, and the state Department of Health's process of allowing applicants to redact information without checking to see if those redactions were in compliance with the state's Right to Know Law.

The state's Office of Open Records ordered the judges' names be disclosed in response to an appeal of the health department's denial filed by PennLive. The department now is contemplating whether to appeal that order to Commonwealth Court, Hutcheson said.

Leach said after the scoring is done, it is appropriate to release the judges' names to ensure there are no conflicts of interest. Releasing them before permits are awarded could make the judges subject to outside influence, he said.

However, he said if the health department planned to use the same judges to score the second wave of permit applications, he considered it appropriate for the names to remain a secret until after that process is complete.

He took no position on whether a different set of judges should be brought in to score the second round and praised the health department for doing a good of balancing the desire for transparency and having a system that keeps outside influences at bay throughout the process.

Leach said whenever a competitive process is involved in awarding permits, there are bound to be winners and losers. But he added it would unacceptable to stop growers and dispensaries from setting up their facilities and in turn, denying patients access to medicine they need.

He compared it to someone suing a hospital and asking the court to shut down all hospitals. "That would be nonsensical. It would be cruel. It would be heartless," he said.

Applicants publicly stated that they were getting into the medical marijuana business for the patients, he said. "How can you have concern for the patients if you are asking for their medicine to be taken away from them?"

He further argued that states that have legalized medical marijuana saw a 25 percent reduction in the number of opioid-related deaths in their state, which in Pennsylvania would translate to saving about 500 lives.

Steve Schain, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based International CannaBusiness law firm Hoban Law Group, wasn't at the news conference but echoed the objections raised to Keystone ReLeaf's request for an injunction and called it shameful.

He said, "By seeking to derail Pennsylvania's Medical Marijuana Program and prevent sick people from swiftly receiving medicine, KeyStone ReLeaf, LLC succeeds in squashing its 'failed applicant sour grapes' into a mortal sin."