Medical marijuana has been available in Louisiana for a little over a month and the program’s future is a major issue in the race for Agriculture Commissioner, the department in charge of regulation.
Incumbent Ag Commissioner, Republican Mike Strain, says 10,000 vials of the product have been created under his department’s watch, and he expects the program to continue to grow.
“I think you are going to see a continuous change in the overall medical marijuana program as we go into each legislative session.”
Strain adds the program will soon see it’s production capabilities expand when Southern opens it’s growing facility in the near future.
Natchitoches Parish Democrat Charlie Greer has criticized what he called the Ag Department’s slow rollout of the product, but he says now that the product is out the state needs to make sure it’s effective.
“We need to identify a hospital so that they can go in and quantify that these treatments are working so when we come back to the drawing board, we have a gauge to go on forward.”
New Orleans Democrat Marguerite Green says medical legalization isn’t enough, and the state’s goal should be the full legalization of recreational marijuana.
“I believe we need to do that in order to have the revenue for our state that we can use for a lot of the big projects that we are going to do.”
She adds recreational legalization should also create a pathway to the expungement of non-violent petty drug offenses.
