LSU expects to select a vendor for its medical marijuana program within the next three to four weeks, the university’s dean of the college of agriculture told a state House committee on Thursday.
The Manship News Service reports Bill Richardson, who’s also is vice president of agriculture and oversees the LSU AgCenter, said LSU’s operation will provide for 10 to 20 new jobs, but that the number could rise as the research project grows.
Seven companies—Columbia Care Louisiana, CB Medical, GB Sciences Louisiana, Citiva LA, Southern Roots Therapeutics, Fourrier House, Terah Holdings—have submitted bids for the project.
The operation is estimated to cost between $10 million and $15 million, and lawmakers were warned it will take seven to eight years before it becomes lucrative. The marijuana itself will not be taxed because it is a pharmaceutical and currently exempt from sales tax.
LSU and Southern University were given first rights to produce medical marijuana, which can be distributed in as oil or pill. The law requires the product, which cannot be shipped outside Louisiana, be grown indoors and away from LSU’s campus in an undisclosed, non-LSU operated building, a facility that Richardson predicted will be “one of the most secure facilities, probably, in the state of Louisiana.”
