$24 Million Marijuana Research Facility Set for Ohio; ResponsibleOhio Not Limiting to Only 10 Commercial Growers

Things are getting even more interesting with Ohio’s potential plans to legalize marijuana. New information is coming to light, and many voters are re-weighing the pros and cons of voting for this controversial proposal.
 

Last week, the International Cannabinoid Institute (ICI) announced their commitment to building a $24 million state-of-the-art facility for medical cannabis research.
 

The game-changing news was announced by Garrett Greenlee from the ICI along with Dr. Sue Sisley, the United States’ only FDA-approved researcher for investigating the effects of medical cannabis for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress.
 

The ICI has chosen Ohio as a location specifically because of the constitutional protection that the 2015 legalization initiative, Issue 3 (a.k.a. ResponsibleOhio), would provide to the grow site.
 

Greenlee was initially leery of Issue 3’s plan to limit all commercial growing to 13 million square feet on 10 investor-owned lands. But after a careful reading of the initiative, Greenlee found that Issue 3 doesn’t limit growing to 10 licenses, but rather, growing must occur on only 10 properties. Nothing in Issue 3 prevents those property owners from subdividing their land in any way they choose.
 

Greenlee used that knowledge to negotiate with the property owner in Licking County to lease 15 acres to the ICI for their research facility. And that’s not the only property where there may end up being multiple growers.
 

Last weekend, the Ohio Rights Group (ORG) voted to endorse Issue 3 after they gained assurances from four of the 10 property owners that they will be leasing small plots of their land to multiple small artisanal grows. The growers at those small sites will supposedly retain their intellectual property rights over the genetics they produce.
 

The fact that there would only be 10 grow licenses was a huge deal to the opponents of Issue 3. But now many of them are shifting their views since it has been revealed there will be more than 10 grow businesses.
 

Washington State limited their total statewide grow canopy to 2 million square feet. Growers there can’t have a farm any greater than 30,000 square feet. Growers in Colorado are limited to 10,200 plants. In both states, hundreds of people with farming skills have become well-paid master growers and their assistants. Ohio is going to have 13 million square feet for farming, and the rich investors aren’t getting their hands dirty. There will be numerous companies leasing land from these investors and thousands of skilled farm jobs created by those companies.
 

Ohio votes on marijuana legalization on November 3rd. We’re excited so see how this all plays out.

 

Source: http://www.hightimes.com/read/radical-rant-ohio-have-24m-medical-cannabis-research-facility-artisanal-grows