Growing business

It looks like Louisiana is jumping on the band wagon when it comes to growing and producing medical marijuana, and Louisiana State University will be the first to take a crack at it.
This new venture comes after two bills offered by La. Senator Fred Mills were passed during the 2016 legislative session and then signed into law by La. Governor John Bel Edwards.
A law has been in place since 1978 which sought to establish a medical marijuana program, however no one was allowed to grow the plant and process it until now.
One of the bills that was recently passed now allows doctors to “recommend” instead of prescribe marijuana to patients who qualify to use it medicinally, while the other amends criminal statutes to specifically offer protection to patients and their caregivers for possession or consumption of medical marijuana.
This project first began in 2015 when the Louisiana Legislature passed a measure allowing LSU and Southern University exclusive rights to grow and distribute the product in the state.
At this time, LSU is the only of the two schools to begin moving forward with their plans to produce medical marijuana.
LSU Ag Center Vice President Bill Richardson, who is leading this project, told reporters in September, “This is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. We’ve learned a lot about it in the last several months, and there’s a lot of interest in what we’re doing in Louisiana. Our operation is strictly pharmaceutical.”
Their plan at this time is to have the plants grown off campus in a secure building, but that location has yet to be determined. Students will not be involved in this process.
When it comes to processing the plant, the LSU Ag Center will process what is needed from the plant into a pill or ointment and then distribute it to pharmacies across the state.
Southern’s Ag Center is not out of the game yet however. The school has hopes to make an announcement concerning their plans for growing and processing medical marijuana later this year.
Neither school will receive state funding for this project, and the state will not receive any profit from this. Money from the sale of medical marijuana will be put back into the LSU Ag Center for more research to be done.
Hampton Grunewald, who handles government relations for the AG Center, told reporters, “We’re operating a statewide agency with 64 parish offices, research stations around the state, with $36 million less than what we had eight to 10 years ago. So the intent was try to find a way that we could offset some of our reductions and at the same time benefit some patients in Louisiana with some medical needs.”
The LSU Ag Center is not waisting anytime on trying to get this project off the ground, and their hope is to begin growing marijuana by January 1, 2017.