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THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS • THE COMMERCE NEWS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2016
Special Report
Doing medical cannabis the right way
Georgia can learn from how
Minnesota is cultivating a
new biomedical industry
ST. PAUL, MN — I have seen the future of medical mari
juana and its name is Minnesota.
A few miles south of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis & St.
Paul is a blueprint for what may be the best model yet of how
state political and medical leaders should pursue opening the
door to medical cannabis production and patient consump
tion.
Although Georgia’s legislative leaders have nixed the idea
of allowing in-state production and distribution of medical
cannabis for 2016, legislation presented earlier this year in
Georgia was based on Minnesota’s two-year-old medical
cannabis law.
So last week, I went to Minnesota to see how that state’s
experience with medical cannabis is working and what les
sons Georgia leaders might learn from it.
Unlike Colorado where full legalization of both medical
and recreational marijuana has created a media frenzy in
recent years, here in Minnesota the creation of a limited,
medical-only cannabis industry has been extremely low-key.
There are no gaudy “head shops,” or green signs touting pot
for sale. If you didn’t know where to go, you’d never find the
location to obtain medical cannabis, or where it’s produced.
MAKING MEDICAL CANNABIS
It’s only a 20-mile drive east of the Minneapolis/St. Paul
Airport to where LeafLine Labs, one of two state-sanctioned
firms, grows medical cannabis plants and makes medical
marijuana products.
Cottage Grove, the suburban community where LeafLine’s
plant is located, has a population of 35,000 people. It’s
a middle-class community that sits on the north bank of
the Mississippi River with a median household income of
$65,800. The location makes for an easy commute up 1-494 to
the Twin Cities region.
LeafLine was one of the two firms selected by Minnesota in
2014 to produce and dispense medical cannabis. Its produc
tion facility in Cottage Grove is a large, non-descript 43,000 sq.
ft. building sitting on 17 acres in an industrial park. There are
no signs to the facility, nor is there a sign on the building itself,
although one is being discussed.
From the outside, it looks just like a typical industrial park
building found anywhere in the country.
BOTANY JOINS MEDICINE
Dr. Andrew Bachman, co-founder and CEO of LeafLine
Labs is my host for a tour of the plant and its dispensary.
In an ironic twist, Dr. Bachman’s great-great-grandfather
founded what is now known as Bachman’s Floral Gift and
Garden Centers in the Minneapolis area. Dr. Bachman didn’t
go into the family horticulture business and instead became
an emergency room physician.
Today, however, the 40-year-old doctor has returned, at
least in part, to his botanical roots as head of this innovative
cannabis growing and medical production facility.
Dr. Bachman and his team appear to have left nothing
to whim in the creation of LeafLine. The firm’s bright logo
includes the organic chemistry symbol for a molecule and
its colors of blue and orange were purposely selected to get
away from the typical marijuana green, said Bachman.
“We wanted to project a more scientific and professional
look,” he said.
On the day I visited, Bachman was dressed in a blue suit
and wore bright orange socks as an echo to the company’s
color theme.
While all of that is surface appearance, the cannabis fac
tory itself tells a larger story. The facility was designed and
custom built just for medical cannabis production and it had
to be completed in only seven months to meet the state’s
deadlines.
Making that even more complex was the lack of bank
financing for the build. Investors (over 100, according to
press reports, including members of Dr. Bachman’s family)
raised over $16 million and paid cash to have the facility
constructed.
The building has “phased security” systems designed by a
retired head of the Minneapolis FBI office. Entering the bul
letproof front doors requires either a card, or security guard
approval. The front entry walls are Kevlar reinforced.
The plant is completely self-contained with all the growing
and production done inside the building. The only thing out
side is the parking lot.
THE PROCESS
After a brief tour of the firm’s small administrative area, we
don white protective suits and enter through a secure door
to the first corridor. The suits aren’t to protect us, but rather
are designed to protect the cannabis plants from outside
contamination. Ironically, wild hemp (cannabis) grows in
abundance in Minnesota. Bachman doesn’t want any stray
pollen from the wild cannabis to infect the special hybridized
medical cannabis growing in the building.
Security cameras are everywhere in the facility and the
factory’s 24/7 security room looks like a high-tech system you
might find at a casino in Las Vegas.
While heavily secured, there really isn’t too much to steal
from a factory like this. The cannabis plants are too large to
just walk out with and the finished medical cannabis oils are
locked in a huge vault.
Off the corridor are a series of rooms, each requiring
card entry though a heavy metal door. The first area has
cultivation rooms where various strains of cannabis plants
are grown. (There are thousands of cannabis strains, each
with its unique genetic makeup. There are said to be more
strains of cannabis in the world than there are breeds of dogs.
LeafLine grows strains hybridized for medical use.)
The first room has smaller “baby” plants that are just start
ing their lifecycle. The next grow room has medium size
plants and other rooms have mature, ready to harvest plants.
These rooms are isolated from each other in part for
growing adjustments, but also to contain any kind of outside
infestation that might happen.
We don sunglasses to enter these cultivation rooms because
of the intense bright lights used in the growing process. Each
plant is labeled and barcoded with its particular strain infor
mation and other botanical
data.
The plants are hydropon-
ically grown not in dirt, but
a mulch medium designed
for its particular strain.
Computer controlled water
and nutrients flow to the
plants’ roots through plas
tic piping. The rooms’ C02
level, temperature and light
ing are tightly controlled for
consistency.
The factory also has a
self-contained air filter sys
tem designed to keep the
strong aroma of cannabis
from escaping the building and to also filter the air coming
into the growing and production rooms.
Dr. Bachman compares the growing of cannabis to the
growing of grapes for wine production. Different strains of
cannabis, like different kinds of grapes, result in a unique final
product. The conditions of how a cannabis strain is grown
affects the outcome just as variations in weather, lighting and
nutrients affects wine.
STRONG AND STICKY
By the time we enter the final growing room, the cannabis
plants are three to four feet high and are producing the buds
from which the medical oils are drawn. Cannabis plants have
strong fibers that can hold a lot of bud weight, but many are
given extra support with netting and wires in the growing
rooms.
The cannabis buds themselves are covered in a sticky
resin that is the main source of cannabis oil. From an evolu
tionary viewpoint, this resin serves as both a defender of the
plant in the wild (it tastes bad to animals and insects) and as
the place for pollen to be gathered to produce new seeds.
However, by focusing on growing female plants and deny
ing pollination, these special strains of cannabis produce
high levels of resin.
By harvesting this resin at the right time, the different medi
cal compounds found in cannabis can be manipulated. The
idea is to gather and process cannabis resin as close to the
final product mixture as possible.
extractor when I was there and their old machine had been
moved. A smaller testing extractor was in place.)
Essentially, the buds are put inside this stainless steel
extractor and high pressure C02 flows through them extract
ing the cannabis oil. No solvents are used to extract the can
nabis oil. (Dangerous solvents are how “bootleg” cannabis
oil is made in people’s garages.)
One of the key aspects to this process is consistency in
output. If LeafLine is trying to produce an oil that has a CBD
to THC ratio of 2:1, it’s important to know what the real ratio is
from batch to batch. So in-house testing is done by the firm’s
chemist and the cannabis oil is also tested by independent
Minnesota health labs.
Once the oil is extracted, it can then be readied for medical
consumption. Depending on the need, the oil is either made
into pill or capsule form; as a tincture (eye-dropper applica
tion under the tongue); or put into a vape pen (e-cigarette)
for inhalation.
Under Minnesota law, the raw plant products cannot be
smoked or eaten; only the extracted oil product can be dis
pensed.
When the final oil product is finished, it is stored in a large
vault until its ready for shipping to the firm’s dispensary.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Minstreet Newspapers,
Inc. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.
MINNESOTA’S SYSTEM
As the 23rd out of 24 states to approve some
kind of medical cannabis access, Minnesota
seems to have learned from mistakes and mis
steps made in other states. Its medical cannabis
system is limited both in scope and production.
According to news reports, Minnesota’s law is
one of the most restrictive in the nation.
Currently, nine medical conditions qualify for
a patient to get medical cannabis in Minnesota:
cancer, ALS, muscle spasms/MS, seizures, glau
coma, HIV/AIDS, Tourette syndrome, Crohn’s
disease or terminal illness with less than a year
to live. This summer, a 10th condition, intrac
table pain, is being added to the list.
When it created its medical cannabis system
in 2014, Minnesota licensed two companies to
produce and dispense medical marijuana prod
ucts. Each company has a production facility and
each currently has one dispensary, although as
the use of medical cannabis increases, each
Congressional District in Minnesota (eight) will
eventually have a dispensary.
Minnesota further limits what can be pro
duced to only pills, liquids or oil. Raw can
nabis plant parts cannot be sold, smoked or
consumed in “edible” products.
The entire process is inspected by the state’s
department of health. Only Minnesota resi
dents can get state approval for medical can
nabis.
CUTTING/DRYING
Once the plants are ready to be harvested, they are moved
to a secure processing room further down the corridor where
the buds and some surrounding botanical structures are cut
by hand from the limbs. The buds are then hung and dried
before being stored in a secure holding room further down
the corridor.
The unused limbs and stalks of the plant are then weighed,
denuded and sent to a nearby company to be recycled as
compost. Under Minnesota law, all parts of the plant are
accounted for in the process, Bachman said. Even the root-
ball is destroyed.
EXTRACTION
When LeafLine is ready to produce medical oil, the dried
buds are moved into the firm’s lab where they are put into a
C02 extractor. (The firm was about to install a new, larger
in 2014, Minnesota licensed two companies to
produce and dispense medical marijuana prod
ucts. Each company has a production facility and
each currently has one dispensary, although as
the use of medical cannabis increases, each
Congressional District in Minnesota (eight) will
eventually have a dispensary.
Minnesota further limits what can be pro
duced to only pills, liquids or oil. Raw can
nabis plant parts cannot be sold, smoked or
consumed in “edible” products.
The entire process is inspected by the state’s
department of health. Only Minnesota resi
dents can get state approval for medical can
nabis.
Looking at mature cannabis buds
Dr. Andrew Bachman, co-founder and CEO of LeafLine Labs in Minnesota, checks a handful of canna
bis buds that are nearly ready to be harvested. The main medical ingredients used from the cannabis
plants is found in a sticky resin around the buds and in some supporting leaves. Depending on the
exact strain of plant and what medicine is to be made, the buds are harvested at a specific time. All
the plants at LeafLine are grown indoors under tight environmental conditions to ensure consistency.
Just another industrial building
This 43,000 Sq. Ft. building is where LeafLine Labs makes its medical cannabis products. The building
is in an industrial park in Cottage Grove, MN, a suburb of St. Paul, and sits on a 17-acre tract. There
are no signs marking the building and it’s high-tech security system was designed by a former FBI
regional director. This building was designed and built specifically for medical cannabis production
and had to be completed in only seven months to meet state requirements for dispensing medical
cannabis. LeafLine Labs was one of two companies selected by Minnesota in 2014 to manufacture and
dispense medical cannabis products in that state.
