Pot grower eyes facility
POTTSTOWN » A company that tried unsuccessfully last year to establish a medical marijuana grow facility in Pottstown is trying again.
And its proposal has expanded.
Jon Cohn, head of a company called Agronomed, received support from Pottstown Borough Council April 9 for plans to pursue a state permit for the medical marijuana facility, and plans to grow industrial hemp.
Cohn said his company has already received the hemp growing permit, and hopes to be up and running by the third financial quarter of the year.
Last year, the state issued both medical marijuana-growing permits allocated for the
seven counties around Philadelphia to firms in Berks County.
Another 13 permits will be issued statewide this year, as well as eight more for co-ventures that are joint operations with research universities, “so hopefully that will widen the field a bit and make it a little less competitive,” said Cohn.
Cohn said thanks to the scores being released on last year’s applications, Agronomed “learned where we did well and where we needed to improve” in the permit process.
Response to Pennsylvania’s rollout of medical marijuana has been explosive and more than was predicted, he said.
There were 10,000 medical marijuana patients registered in the first month and the number has already exceeded 26,000, which had been the estimate for all of 2018, Cohn said.
Further the Medical Marijuana Advisory Board voted 11-0 to send the recommendation to allow dryleaf medical marijuana that can be smoked to Health Secretary Rachel Levine to decide whether the Department of Health should create regulations allowing it.
Currently, state regulations do not allow smoking leaf marijuana and it can only be taken as a pill, lotion or liquid.
The 17 qualifying conditions for medical marijuana under the Pennsylvania law are ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease); autism; cancer; Crohn’s Disease; epilepsy; glaucoma; HIV/AIDS; Huntington’s Disease; IBD (inflammatory bowel disease); intractable seizures; multiple sclerosis; neurophathies; Parkinson’s Disease; PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder); chronic pain; sickle cell anemia and spinal cord nerve injuries.
It has also been shown to be helpful in curbing the opioid epidemic as it provides an alternative to those addictive drugs.
Since Pennsylvania passed its law in 2016, five other states have legalized recreational use of marijuana and four more have passed medicinal use bills.
A medical marijuana dispensary opened last week in Phoenixville on Kimberton Pike.
With a May 17 deadline looming for the permit application, Councilman Dennis Arms said it would be foolish to wait until the May council meeting to vote on providing a letter of support for Agronomed.
His motion to do so immediately was approved unanimously by council.
In addition to taking another run at a medical marijuana permit, Cohn said a year’s worth of research has also convinced his company to get into the industrial hemp business.
A cash crop once grown by George Washington and William Penn, Cohn said hemp has many different industrial uses in everything from food to medicine to textiles to building materials.
It is also a crop that the U.S. imports from China, he said, so establishing more American growers could lower the trade deficit with that country.
Because the hemp and medical marijuana operations cannot be located in the same place, Cohn said he is in the market for another property in Pottstown.