Pubdate: Fri, 08 Jul 2016
Source: News-Press (Fort Myers, FL)
Copyright: 2016 The News-Press
Contact:  http://www.news-press.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1133
Author: Frank Gluck

QUIET HARVEST: FLORIDA'S FIRST MEDICAL MARIJUANA CROP CUT UP AND STORED

TALLAHASSEE - Florida's first legal harvest of marijuana is stored in 
multiple vacuum-packed, 441-gram bags in a freezer on the outskirts 
of Tallahassee.

Each is the result of months of careful growing, monitoring, coaxing, 
and finally cultivating, scores of plants in a hidden farm overseen 
by horticulturalists and protected by armed guards.

This is one of two production facilities operated by Surterra 
Therapeutics, the first of six companies to win state approval to 
grow and harvest medical marijuana for the seriously ill and dying.

It is part pharmaceutical production facility, part grow house. Its 
operators say it is just the start of new business they hope will 
bring high-quality, and formerly unavailable, medicine to patients 
who need it the most.

"It's a very exciting place to be in the medical field in Florida 
right now, because this is not just a new medication we're talking 
about," said Dr. Joseph Dorn, Surterra's medical director, whose 
career includes a dozen years in Florida hospice care. "This is a 
mindset transformation in the treatment of patients, probably tens of 
thousands of patients whose symptoms are not completely relieved right now."

Florida laws adopted in 2014 and this year allow two types of medical 
marijuana: non-euphoric strains, such as "Charlotte's Web," that is 
thought to help control seizures and ease symptoms of certain other 
medical conditions; and full-strength marijuana to alleviate pain, 
nausea and other symptoms for patients considered terminally ill.

Since Surterra won approval to harvest last month, Florida has 
allowed four other companies to do the same: Chestnut Hill Tree Farm 
in Alachua County, Hackney Nursery in Gadsden County, Modern Health 
Concepts in Miami-Dade County, and Knox Nursery in Orange County.

Such businesses are poised to expand considerably if the required 60 
percent of voters in November cast 'Yes' ballots for Amendment 2, 
which would legalize full-strength marijuana for an estimated 450,000 
Floridians with debilitating illnesses.

And Surterra, an Atlanta-based start-up that partnered with the 
30-year-old Homestead-based Alpha Foliage, plans to be among the 
state's largest producers.

The company operates a 6,000-square-foot facility in rural 
Tallahassee to grow the non-euphoric strain; another slightly smaller 
facility outside of Tampa grows the full-strength variety. Each is 
expected to supply medicine for 2,000 to 4,000 patients per month.

"Surterra's key thing is producing a consistent, high-quality, safe 
product," said Susan Driscoll, the company's president. "It's for 
people who are sick."

Tight security

Surterra recently allowed a reporter and photographer to tour its 
primary growing facility outside of Tallahassee on the condition that 
they not disclose its exact location.

And, indeed, the company takes security seriously at its production sites.

The Tallahassee grow operation is housed in a windowless structure in 
a sparsely populated, rural area outside of the city. The building, 
inside and out, is under 24/7 video surveillance and is surrounded by 
a chain-linked fence with barbed wire.

Nothing of it can be seen from the main road, and no signs announce 
its presence.

Visitors are given instructions to the site verbally - no emailed 
addresses - to make sure its location is not accidentally shared.

Employees and others that the company allows on the property must 
pass through two checkpoints, each with an armed guard, before 
reaching the main building.

Once inside, security takes all cellphones and checks IDs a third time.

Each plant, and anything harvested or discarded, is weighed and 
tracked by individual bar code.

Waste is ground into near dust and mixed in as compost out back. 
(Employees are thinking about planting a vegetable garden in the spot.)

"Nobody can slide away with it," Driscoll said. He motioned to the 
pockets in the protective jumpsuit workers are required to wear: "In 
fact these are sewn together."

In truth, it's a lot of expense and effort for marijuana that would 
be useless to most would-be recreational smokers.

This high-cannabidiol, low-tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC) type of 
cannabis does not produce the high typical of recreational marijuana.

If one were to smoke it? "You'd probably just get a headache," Driscoll said.

Patients in need

Matthew Hunter, a 33-year-old Jacksonville man with Stage IV 
esophageal cancer, hopes to be among the first to benefit from the 
newly available strains.

Hunter started his third round of chemotherapy last week and hopes 
marijuana, euphoric strain or not, can help alleviate the resulting 
nausea and pain. Other drugs have not helped with symptoms, he said, 
and he knows many patients who swear by it.

Hunter said he's now looking for a doctor who may order it. Florida 
law requires patients have at least a 90-day relationship with a 
doctor authorized to obtain marijuana before they may have access to the drug.

"My understanding is that it has some benefits during the 
chemotherapy process, which is pretty rough. I can attest to that," 
Hunter said."If it's something that can be regulated and administered 
by a doctor, I just don't see why that wouldn't be the best route to go."

And, for now, only four physicians in Lee, Collier and Charlotte 
counties have received approval to order marijuana for patients.

Three did not respond to requests for interviews.

The one who did, Dr. Paul Arnold, a Cape Coral physician specializing 
in pain management, said he has no patients who would qualify under 
existing law. But he said he gets calls regularly from people who 
claim they need it.

While Arnold suspects many are simply looking for easy access to pot, 
he said many others likely suffer from illnesses that medical 
marijuana might help treat. He said it is far preferable to highly 
addictive and potentially lethal opioids patients are commonly prescribed.

"It's coming down the path of things available to a physician to 
treat pain, uncontrollable seizures," he said. "And apparently it's 
effective. So, I wanted to be able to do it, of course."

Controlled environment

Growing marijuana is not like tending a ficus.

Each of the plants must go through differing, highly controlled 
stages of growth to properly bloom the flowers that are the main 
source of marijuana's potency.

They are all born from "mother plants," whose clippings take root 
over the course of two weeks in small pots.

Young, newly rooted plants are moved to progressively larger pots and 
left to grow for about a month in a room that is brightly lit for 18 
hours a day to encourage growth.

They then move to one of two "flower rooms," each housing about 200 
plants, for the next two months. Here, the smell of fresh marijuana 
is overwhelming. They are exposed to a yellow-hued light and more 
darkness (about 12 hours), meant to mimic the changing seasons. This 
is what encourages the flowers to develop.

"You're kind of artificially messing with their grow cycles a bit," 
said Wes Conner, cultivation manager at the facility.

Ultimately, the flowers and any other useful parts of the plant are 
harvested. The first such harvest, which required specific state 
approval, took place in late June.

Harvested product is taken to another room, where it is dried and 
ground in a device Connor likens to a "high-tech margarita mixer." 
Workers then vacuum-seal it and stick it in a freezer.

Smoking marijuana for any reason remains illegal in Florida. So all 
of this harvest will eventually be processed into cannabis oils, 
sprays, balms and capsules that are expected to be ready to ship next month.

Surterra does not plan to offer edibles, such as the cannabis-laced 
cookies and candy offered in other medical marijuana states.

"They concern me a little bit, because the body reacts very 
differently," Driscoll said. "For some people it might take two 
hours, for some it might take four hours. We're focused on trying to 
give people consistent product. It's very hard to do that with edibles."

Legally gray

Though marijuana remains illegal under federal law, authorities have 
generally allowed the states to experiment with legalization since 
1996, when California voters first authorized its use for certain 
medical conditions.

Twenty-five states, the District of Columbia and Guam allow 
comprehensive marijuana use for medical purposes, and several others 
are considering it this year, according to the National Conference of 
State Legislatures.

Another 17, including Florida, allow for more limited medical 
marijuana use. Amendment 2 in Florida, which is on the November 
ballot, would only expand its allowable medical use for patients with 
strictly defined debilitating illnesses.

Recreational marijuana use is allowed in Colorado, Washington, 
Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia. Recreational marijuana 
measures are on the ballot in nearly a half dozen states this fall, 
including California.

With such a fuzzy regulatory patchwork, running a marijuana 
production and distribution operation in Florida comes with some 
unique logistical challenges, Surterra officials say.

Simple things for most businesses, such as insuring vehicles used to 
transport the product, cost 10 times what they normally would, for 
instance, Driscoll said.

Employee background checks require extra scrutiny. And Surterra is 
still meeting with several banks to make sure they won't have 
difficulty in depositing earnings, a problem some marijuana 
businesses have had in states like Colorado.

The legally gray nature of the business becomes even more apparent 
when a reporter asks Driscoll how the company got the seeds to even 
start their business. Buying them from out of state and bringing them 
to Florida would be a federal crime, after all.

Her only explanation, even when pressed: "Cannabis is native to the 
state of Florida."

(Note: While cannabis certainly grows wild (and in legal and illegal 
farming operations) in North America, the plant likely originated in 
central Asia.)

Opponents of Amendment 2 have been largely mum about the 2014 and 
2016 laws. Christina Johnson, spokeswoman for the "Vote No on 2" 
campaign, said that's because they were not constitutional amendments.

"Charlotte's Web and Right to Try legislation on the other hand can 
be changed, limited or altered by Florida statute every year unlike 
Amendment 2," Johnson said.

While Surterra supports expanding access to medical marijuana, 
Driscoll said she is less certain about the merits of legalizing the 
drug for recreational use.

She said marijuana producers in states like Colorado have focused 
their energies on the lucrative recreational market, at the expense 
of developing strains better suited for patients.

"This is a state that we thought was taking the medical part of it 
very seriously," she said. "Whereas a lot of the states are 
'wink-wink' medical or recreational. And that was something that we 
were not interested in. We wanted to go where we could really focus 
on the medical parts about it."

[sidebar]

How to get medical marijuana in Florida

Patients may obtain medical marijuana in two types of circumstances: 
They have seizures or other qualifying illnesses that would benefit 
from a non-euphoric, low-THC strain such as "Charlotte's Web." Or, if 
they have irreversible "terminal" illnesses, they may obtain 
full-strength medical marijuana.

In either case, the marijuana must be consumed only in a smokeless 
fashion. Only state-approved doctors may order medical marijuana.

Patients must also have had a face-to-face treatment history with a 
cannabis-approved physician for at least three months. Patients 
younger than 18 must obtain a recorded recommendation for marijuana 
treatment from a second physician.

For more information, contact the Florida Office of Compassionate Use.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom