First Medical Cannabis Harvest in Ohio Begins

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]O[/dropcap]hio has officially permitted an Eastlake-based cannabis cultivator, Buckeye Relief LLC, to begin growing medical cannabis. The company expects to harvest Ohio’s first legal medical cannabis batch at its new, multi-million dollar facility sometime in December. The company started to reap its first harvest on Dec. 6. Workers at the facility will spend the next several days cutting, trimming and preparing to dry the buds for approximately 1,300 plants that were planted as soon as the company received a certificate of operation in July.

“I’m at the front end of a fascinating and exciting business,” Majority Owner Andy Rayburn said. “The bottom line is, it is actual, helpful medicine. The stories are in abundance.” The Ohio Legislature legalized medical cannabis in June 2016. The law permits residents with at least one of the 21 eligible medical conditions to obtain a doctor’s recommendation to purchase cannabis legally from any of the state-licensed dispensaries. Unfortunately, Ohio missed its Sept. 8 deadline for getting medical cannabis products ready for  patients, but officials feel that the program should be up and running by the end of the year.

The company’s Chief Technology Officer Ed Neimeier said that his job is to help Buckeye Relief grow cannabis of the highest quality through testing and experimentation. The company uses only female plants to ensure quality of their cannabis products. According to Leslie Brandon, an employee of of Buckeye Relief, by removing the male plants, the risk of pollination and seeds in the buds is eliminated. Future crops is planned to be be sown from clones of these first plants to ensure reliability and consistency in providing top-notch products.

Ohio is among 30 states that have legalized medical cannabis. If Ohio State is able to get its patient’s website functional, Buckeye Relief plans to sell its first batch of products to dispensaries that are expected to have opened shortly.