Businessman Len Goodman owns a company that makes hand-painted art tiles, but these days his office desk is strewn with the raw materials of a new enterprise: fat, sweetly pungent marijuana buds.
Newly licensed by the state to produce and distribute medical marijuana, Goodman must decide which strains he will grow in a steel-doored industrial building somewhere in Santa Fe County that will soon be converted into a high-tech indoor greenhouse.
‘LIKE WINE’
“Every one is different,” Goodman said of the brownish buds in plastic bags. “It’s like wine.”
While California confronts a proliferation of marijuana shops and Colorado wrestles with regulations, New Mexico is slowly and quietly breathing life into a 2007 law that allows patients with certain medical conditions to get relief from marijuana.
The first state to license producers, New Mexico gave the go-ahead to one nonprofit in March and four others last week.
Patients with a qualifying condition — there are 15 — must get recommendations from medical providers, apply to the Department of Health, then, if they are approved, reapply each year.
There were 755 approved patients as of last week, the state agency said.
“This is medical marijuana,” said Goodman, who submitted 100 pages of plans to the department to get licensed. “This is not de facto legalization.”
The licensing of four new nonprofits is welcome news to patients. The first provider ran out of marijuana shortly after it began distribution in July and wasn’t expected to have more for months.
With each producer limited to 95 plants, there was no way for one nonprofit to keep up with the growing demand as more patients are certified.
CAUTION
The medical cannabis program, as the department refers to it, “will continue to proceed carefully ... so we can meet the needs of our patients while not creating an excess supply,” Health Secretary Alfredo Vigil said when he announced the latest licensing.
The department doesn’t disclose the names of patients or producers, saying it wants to ensure their safety.
Maine voters recently approved state-licensed dispensaries and Rhode Island allows three nonprofit pot shops.
Reena Szczepanski, director of the Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico, said it remained to be seen whether New Mexico’s supply and distribution system will be adequate and workable.
“But the whole point of having a regulated system is we can find out these things,” she said.
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