Planting seeds

This year, LSU and Southern will embark on a journey of growth: barrier-breaking medical marijuana production programs. Since early 2017, both universities have been looking for contractors to grow the product, after a state law signed in 2015 cleared the way to legally grow, prescribe and dispense medical marijuana.

Southern held a town hall in February to ease community concerns about it before opening up the bidding process, with a decision expected this summer to begin work at its research station near Baker.

For LSU, the product could be developed as early as this fall. We spoke to Bill Richardson, LSU’s vice president for agriculture, about the strange journey to university-grown pot.

Why is the LSU AgCenter tackling this program?

When the [medical marijuana] legislation was considered in 2015, the thinking of the legislators at that particular time was that they did not want it grown in the private sector. So, when they decided not to grow it in the private sector, they looked at the possibilities within state government, and the most obvious choices were the two agricultural centers: one at LSU and one at Southern.

Were you excited to take this on?

Initially, we were not really sure about it. They did put in an opt-out provision in the law. We had several months to consider it. Then, we became much more excited about the potential for what we could do research-wise. We knew that we probably could help some people, and it was something that we had expertise in on the growing side of it. So, we’ve embraced it and are looking forward to hopefully making the effort successful in Louisiana.

How, specifically, will this project help people?

There’s speculation that certain people get some relief from pain or other effects from the compound that’s in the marijuana plant. Not so much the THC, which is considered the “high” drug. But there’s a compound in it called CBD [cannabidiol], and it tends to help people with seizures and things like that. So there’s a medical benefit to this. It looks like there’s going to be a lot of attention given to this over the next few years, and we’re excited about it. And we’re only looking at it from a pharmaceutical perspective. We have no interest in working with it from a recreational perspective.

How will this program work logistically?

It will be grown indoors; that’s in the law. We’re going to have it grown in a warehouse, not in a greenhouse. It will be highly secure, both inside and out. There will be no students—LSU students, Southern students or any students that we know of—working in the facility, and no one under the age of 21. It will be a seed-to-pill operation, in which we’ll be doing both the growing and the extraction of the oil and formulation of the different ways people can use it. There will also be a research component on the plant side of things, as far as what goes on relative to testing the plant’s compounds.

How is the AgCenter preparing for production?

We’ve got some folks who are working on the extraction formulation and the testing aspects. We want to make sure that we have a product that’s safe and free of contaminants, so that when someone goes to their doctor and gets a recommendation that gets filled by one of the dispensaries, they’ve got a quality product they can use.

Will the marijuana go strictly to people in Louisiana?

Yes, it’s strictly within the borders of Louisiana. It’s legal by state law, but still illegal federally. … A doctor will have to meet with a potential client-patient, they have to make a recommendation, and the patient will then have to go get [a prescription] filled. In the state law, the person who is getting the recommendation is immune from prosecution for possession of [medical marijuana].

Will any of this be taking place on campus?

It will not be on campus. It will be most likely in East Baton Rouge Parish, but will not be on or immediately adjacent to campus; it will not be where students can wander in and wander out.

Why is this kind of agricultural work important?

If you look globally, between now and 2050, the population of the Earth is going to increase by 2 billion people. From an agricultural perspective, the major source of protein for those people is going to be plant protein. So we are engaging in research on all types of plants we can do genetic modifications with in order to increase production of food for this increased world population. This type of research, where we can do genetic modifications of plants and maybe put more of a certain compound in the plant and less of a “high” drug in the plant, uses techniques that could be used throughout the agricultural arena. That’s why it’s very interesting to us.

Online

lsuagcenter.com
suagcenter.com

This article was originally published in the May 2017 issue of 225 Magazine.