Jacob Redmond
Well-Known Member
A company with Midwest roots has unveiled plans for a marijuana growing and processing facility in the Mohawk Valley, the latest proposal to pop up as part of New York's new ganja gold rush.
Last week, another company offered a proposal to open a similar facility on Kings Highway in Saugerties. The facility would employ 100 people, according to town officials, but few details about the plan have emerged.
"Medical cannabis as it stands right now (in other states) is very different than what we are looking at in New York," said project developer Dr. Kyle Kingsley, a Minnesota emergency room physician turned medical marijuana entrepreneur. "I see this is as an opportunity to really medicalize components of this plant and make these cannabis derived medicines."
"Our patients are never going to see the plant. They are going to get a pill, they are going to get an oil, they are going to get a tincture, a solution that is a medication for them."
Most states have looser rules on access to medical marijuana than New York, which treats it more like a controlled substance prescription medication, including a ban on letting patients smoke the drug. They will be permitted to vape the oil.
The 20-acre facility would go in a Fulton County technology park, once part of the site of the former Tryon state reform school where boxer Mike Tyson was held as a child. It would include a new 20,000-square-foot greenhouse and 50,000 square-foot lab and processing facility, and an existing 15,000 square-foot building renovated for use as a growing site.
The site is along the Thruway and Kingsley said its central location is in keeping with the company's business plan to serve the entire state.
Kingsley said those being treated with marijuana extracts would likely total "in the scores of thousands of patients" in the first year the program is running, but offered no specifics on how much money his for-profit company expects to make.
"There's a lot of wiggle room with the numbers and again it is very dependent on the number of patients that you are looking at," he said. "As far as profitability, you are looking at quite a few years before you are profitable. A big thing is we are not a standard capitalist organization, we are a health care organization, so patient access and affordability of medications is pretty fundamental to what we do."
According to the state Health Department, use of medical marijuana is limited to people "diagnosed with a specific severe, debilitating or life-threatening condition that is accompanied by an associated or complicating condition. The law identifies the following severe, debilitating or life-threatening conditions: cancer, HIV infection or AIDS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury with spasticity, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, neuropathy, and Huntington's disease. The associated or complicating conditions are cachexia or wasting syndrome, severe or chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, or severe or persistent muscle spasms."
The drug will be taxed and anyone using it will likely not be able to have their insurance pay for it, because of marijuana's illegal status under federal law.
Local officials in the economically challenged rural area have enthusiastically backed the project.
"Empire State Health Solution's proposed project is a great fit for Tryon," Fulton County Board of Supervisor Chairman Ralph Ottuso said at Thursday's press conference. "As a pharmaceutical manufacturing business aligned with the findings of our targeted industrial analysis for the park, it represents the official start of the Tryon Technology Park."
He said the closing of the Tryon school cost the county 300 jobs. The marijuana operation would create an estimated 75 unionized jobs, Empire State Health Solutions said.
The facility would also be high security. The federal government still considers growing marijuana to be a crime, but the Obama Administration is not enforcing the laws if states are involved in permitting cultivation.
The project follows on the heels of announcements of other planned facilities, including a proposed marijuana dispensary in Clifton Park, Saratoga County, operated by a Plattsburgh pot grower called North Country Roots.
Under terms of the 2014 Compassionate Care Act, New York is poised to approve five marijuana growing operations, each with four dispensary sites. Applicants have until June 5 to submit paperwork to the Health Department, which is by law supposed to have the growing operations and dispensaries operating by Jan. 5, 2016.
Many of the details of the program remain sketchy, including how lucrative it will be for the owners of the for-profit growing operations. Not-for-profits are also permitted under state law.
Empire State Health Solutions is a New York company started by the same entrepreneurs behind Minnesota Medical Solutions, one of two growers permitted in that state. New York was the 23rd state to legalize medical marijuana, and the number has now grown to 24.
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Medical marijuana facility proposed at Fulton County reform school
Author: Kyle Hughes
Contact: Contact Us
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: The Oneida Daily Dispatch: Breaking News, Sports, Business, Entertainment & Oneida News
Last week, another company offered a proposal to open a similar facility on Kings Highway in Saugerties. The facility would employ 100 people, according to town officials, but few details about the plan have emerged.
"Medical cannabis as it stands right now (in other states) is very different than what we are looking at in New York," said project developer Dr. Kyle Kingsley, a Minnesota emergency room physician turned medical marijuana entrepreneur. "I see this is as an opportunity to really medicalize components of this plant and make these cannabis derived medicines."
"Our patients are never going to see the plant. They are going to get a pill, they are going to get an oil, they are going to get a tincture, a solution that is a medication for them."
Most states have looser rules on access to medical marijuana than New York, which treats it more like a controlled substance prescription medication, including a ban on letting patients smoke the drug. They will be permitted to vape the oil.
The 20-acre facility would go in a Fulton County technology park, once part of the site of the former Tryon state reform school where boxer Mike Tyson was held as a child. It would include a new 20,000-square-foot greenhouse and 50,000 square-foot lab and processing facility, and an existing 15,000 square-foot building renovated for use as a growing site.
The site is along the Thruway and Kingsley said its central location is in keeping with the company's business plan to serve the entire state.
Kingsley said those being treated with marijuana extracts would likely total "in the scores of thousands of patients" in the first year the program is running, but offered no specifics on how much money his for-profit company expects to make.
"There's a lot of wiggle room with the numbers and again it is very dependent on the number of patients that you are looking at," he said. "As far as profitability, you are looking at quite a few years before you are profitable. A big thing is we are not a standard capitalist organization, we are a health care organization, so patient access and affordability of medications is pretty fundamental to what we do."
According to the state Health Department, use of medical marijuana is limited to people "diagnosed with a specific severe, debilitating or life-threatening condition that is accompanied by an associated or complicating condition. The law identifies the following severe, debilitating or life-threatening conditions: cancer, HIV infection or AIDS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury with spasticity, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, neuropathy, and Huntington's disease. The associated or complicating conditions are cachexia or wasting syndrome, severe or chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, or severe or persistent muscle spasms."
The drug will be taxed and anyone using it will likely not be able to have their insurance pay for it, because of marijuana's illegal status under federal law.
Local officials in the economically challenged rural area have enthusiastically backed the project.
"Empire State Health Solution's proposed project is a great fit for Tryon," Fulton County Board of Supervisor Chairman Ralph Ottuso said at Thursday's press conference. "As a pharmaceutical manufacturing business aligned with the findings of our targeted industrial analysis for the park, it represents the official start of the Tryon Technology Park."
He said the closing of the Tryon school cost the county 300 jobs. The marijuana operation would create an estimated 75 unionized jobs, Empire State Health Solutions said.
The facility would also be high security. The federal government still considers growing marijuana to be a crime, but the Obama Administration is not enforcing the laws if states are involved in permitting cultivation.
The project follows on the heels of announcements of other planned facilities, including a proposed marijuana dispensary in Clifton Park, Saratoga County, operated by a Plattsburgh pot grower called North Country Roots.
Under terms of the 2014 Compassionate Care Act, New York is poised to approve five marijuana growing operations, each with four dispensary sites. Applicants have until June 5 to submit paperwork to the Health Department, which is by law supposed to have the growing operations and dispensaries operating by Jan. 5, 2016.
Many of the details of the program remain sketchy, including how lucrative it will be for the owners of the for-profit growing operations. Not-for-profits are also permitted under state law.
Empire State Health Solutions is a New York company started by the same entrepreneurs behind Minnesota Medical Solutions, one of two growers permitted in that state. New York was the 23rd state to legalize medical marijuana, and the number has now grown to 24.
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Medical marijuana facility proposed at Fulton County reform school
Author: Kyle Hughes
Contact: Contact Us
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: The Oneida Daily Dispatch: Breaking News, Sports, Business, Entertainment & Oneida News
