P.E.I.'s first medical marijuana facility ready to harvest
'It's pretty exciting to finally get to this point'
The first crop of licensed medical marijuana grown in P.E.I. is ready for harvest.
Edwin Jewell, president of Canada's Island Garden — the only licensed facility for medical marijuana in Prince Edward Island — says the crop looks good and workers will begin to harvest about 300 plants in coming days.
"It's pretty exciting to finally get to this point where we've grown a crop and it's turned out as successful as it has," said Jewell.
The marijuana has reached maturity inside a secure building with the help of LED lights and a ventilation system to control humidity.
Crop requires extra security
The crop is in one of several nursery rooms in a 24,000 square foot facility.
The highly secured building, which was built last year, is fenced in and requires security codes and passcards for every door.
Canada's Island Garden has a license through Health Canada to grow the plants for medicinal use, the next step will be to get a license to sell it.
Once harvested, the marijuana will be sent for lab testing to make sure it meets federal standards. Jewell said Health Canada officials will then come to do further inspections.
"Health Canada will come on site for possibly three days, to do a much more detailed inspection of our facility," he said.
"Hopefully six to eight weeks from having a license to sell our product, and that's very exciting for us."
Demand is good
Jewell said ten grams will sell for around $75. He's confident demand for the product is there, he said another licensed producer has already approached him to buy this entire harvest.
He said his company hasn't fully decided if it will sell the lot, or bottle it themselves to sell to people with prescriptions.
Recreational market expected to be huge
Recreational marijuana use is also expected to get federal government approval soon. Jewell said that market is expected to be much bigger than medicinal marijuana.
"There's no doubt in my mind our business could be ten times the size it is right now," he said.
For now his focus is on the medicinal marijuana side of the business, but he said he hopes eventually to sell recreational marijuana once it is legal.
And this is what I had to wear to do the story on medical marijuana! <a href="https://t.co/anIXGjh9gh">pic.twitter.com/anIXGjh9gh</a>
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