Housing plans for the University’s legal marijuana growth operation are rapidly moving forward. Ashley Mullens, LSU AgCenter coordinator for the medical marijuana initiative, projects that by the end of summer, the marijuana warehouse will be fully functional and able to distribute products.
The warehouse, located off of Highland Road, is being renovated in phases. In March, the first phase of renovation will be finished, and the growing will commence. By June, the renovation will be complete, and products will become available in late summer.
The first crop will likely be a small one, as the operation is just beginning. The University is currently one of only two planned producers of medical marijuana in Louisiana. The other, Southern University, is still in the formatting stages. As this is an unprecedented operation, Mullens said expansion will be tentatively based on demand and product grown as needed.
“We think we’re going to start slowly, as this is a new adventure,” Mullens said. “We’re going to start with just a small amount of product available to the dispensary, and then base our growth of product on what the doctors and pharmacist want.”
The program still has a lot of paperwork to finish before planting can begin. The operation still needs to get a permit from the city parish and approval from the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry. Mullens said she is staying positive.
“We’re really excited,” Mullens said. “We’re looking forward to getting something growing and getting products out to the patients of Louisiana. It’s been a long process.”
The AgCenter’s partnership with GB Sciences will probably expedite this distribution. GB will be handling production, growth, extraction, formulation and distribution to 9 dispensaries selected by the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy.
The LSU AgCenter researchers will conduct cannabis-related research in the production facility’s research lab, both in partnership with GB and for outside projects. The University will be the first land-grant university to conduct this kind of research.
“We have a lot of plant and animal researchers and food and nutrition researchers that we want to get involved with the program to just really bring some legitimacy to the plant as we have with basic other agricultural crops,” Mullens said.
While the AgCenter coordinators are excited for all the potential research opportunities, time is their enemy. The medical marijuana initiative has to prove its worth before January 2020, when a legislative review will determine if the program will be allowed to continue.
“We have to get up and running pretty quickly, because the law stunts that in January 2020,” Mullens said. “We want to show [the legislature] that this is a beneficial program, and we want to go ahead and start trying to help the patients of Louisiana.”
