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PAGE 6A 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.
