Colorado Day Two: A Growing Industry
Today our meetings focused on the production of cannabis, how it is regulated, and alternative forms of medicine ingestion.
We were fortunate enough to privately tour a large scale cultivation site in a Denver warehouse on Day Two of the trip. Very noticeable after talking to the manager of this grow containing massive rooms filled with plants, compliance with state regulation is the priority and close in second place is cultivating the best quality medicine for their local patients. We learned the state requires tagging and tracking every plant’s movement from seed to harvest. Every plant is given an individual barcode (on back of yellow slip shown below) for very strict tracking of the medicine to ensure the safety of every patient.
We were shown the numerous stages of cannabis cultivation and the different rooms the plants move though as they’re grown and harvested. In a room with 36 lamps (shown below), the yield of the plants is approximately 50lbs of medicine every 2-3 months. And there were a few other rooms in the same facility just like it, giving you an idea of what a cultivation center like this produces on a monthly basis. Even at the rate this cultivation site produces, it hardly is enough to meet their constant demand.
Another interesting aspect of this industry is the misinformation or, at least, lack of information that is being circulated to the public outside of Colorado. People always ask “but isn’t smoking marijuana unhealthy?” Since we’ve been here, we continue to discover patients ingesting their medicine in new ways. The patient can choose from an array of available alternatives that are equally regulated. At the first dispensary we visited, the two girls working hadn’t smoked in a while because they prefer topical treatment through a patch similar to – well, “the patch.” What we’ve found to be the most popular replacement is the edibles. Cheeba Chews (shown below) are a great example.
The chews, like any cough drop, are regulated and provide nutritional values (shown below) as well as what type of cannabis the medicine is made from. For patients with the most painful and difficult ailments, this form is often preferred because the high concentration of medicine in an edible is what’s required to bring relief. One patient mentioned that with her condition, she would ingest an average of 300mg/day. For context, a 10mg dose may be enough for a new cannabis user to get through a migraine, but a 112mg Cheeba Chew may be necessary for experienced patients and/or those with severe pain.
Denver, thank you for the learning experience and we look forward to what our meetings will hold tomorrow.
Stroleny Law: Criminal Defense Attorney, founded by Julian Stroleny, is dedicated to serving those in need of a drug crime attorney in the Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Palm Beach areas. Give us a call at (305) 615-1285 or visit us online at strolenylaw.com.