Source: virginislandsdailynews.com
Michael West, left, director of biotechnology for Green Lion Farms, gives a tour of the medical marijuana facility to a Virgin Islands group on Tuesday, including Sen. Terrence Nelson, center, and Tafari Tzzadi, who works for Nelson's office. Nelson is working on legislation to legalize medical marijuana in the territory.
SEATTLE - It was a full day of gathering information about legalizing marijuana.
In a whirlwind tour, a group from the Virgin Islands visited various marijuana industry facilities - including recreational pot shops and a medicinal marijuana processing facility - and attended a "high" tea with a cannabis industry trade group in Washington on Tuesday.
There was also a lecture by a neurologist during a standing-room only meeting of a small marijuana growers alliance on a rural island off Seattle.
Sen. Terrence Nelson is on a fact-finding tour, visiting Washington and Colorado to look at their experiences in legalizing marijuana. Nelson invited residents from the territory to come along, and a small group is with him.
He has said he plans to offer legislation that would legalize medical marijuana in the territory and wants to avoid the pitfalls experienced by other states.
A marijuana collective
Tuesday's cannabis tour began at Green Lion Farms, a medical marijuana collective. In addition to medical marijuana plants, Green Lion Farms also processes medical marijuana from other collectives, including making oils.
It is in the process of converting a portion of its facility to recreational marijuana processing, said Michael West, the facility's director of biotechnology.
Green Lion Farms is in the application process for recreational marijuana, but it wants to maintain a dual license. Many of the collective's employees are medical marijuana patients, according to West.
He talks about genetics and phenotypes and developing different strains of cannabis for their different qualities. Green Lion Farms also sells seeds to other medical cannabis collectives, he said.
Hemp's versatility
The tour includes some surprising components.
Green Lion Farms also is doing research and development work with industrial hemp, which is imported from the United Kingdom.
West - who happens to be wearing a jacket made from hemp on Tuesday - at one point pulls out a block of "hemp concrete," a concrete-like substance made with hemp.
He described it as a carbon-negative masonry building block. They are working on products with Washington State University, he said.
At another point, West escorts the group into a large room that contains what looks like a still - and that is essentially what it is: a specialized piece of equipment that costs more than $100,000 to distill the oils from cannabis.
The oils are then used in products.
Quality control lab
After the visit to Green Lion Farms, a psychedelic "pot tour" bus takes the group to its next destination, Analytical 360, one of the labs where recreational marijuana growers and processors can take their products for testing.
By law, cannabis products offered for sale in Washington's recreational market must be tested and analyzed for some cannabinoids, including THC concentration.
There is also a requirement for some microbiology tests to check, for example, for mold.
The tour also stopped in at Cannabis City, Seattle's first legal recreational marijuana store.
A line forms outside and a billboard urges passers-by to come see what all the "buzz" is about.
High tea
On Tuesday afternoon, a Marijuana Business Association "High Tea" takes place in honor of Nelson, attracting people involved in various aspects of the state's industry.
The Marijuana Business Association is a national marijuana industry organization.
Refreshments include cannabis-infused teas, sodas and edible treats, along with some food and drink without cannabis.
The event has the same atmosphere as a Chamber mixer, only with weed.
Lots of networking goes on.
"It's growing," said Dave Rheins, chief executive officer and co-founder of the association.
Pot and the brain
The Virgin Islands group then hopped a ferry to Vashon Island, where Dr. Ethan Russo, a neurologist, spoke to a standing room only gathering of the Vashon Island Marijuana Entrepreneurs Alliance about research into the medicinal effects of cannabis.
Russo is involved in cannabis research.
Cannabinoid receptors are the "most abundant" receptors in the brain, he said, adding that understanding how that system works normally and in a disease state is key.
Russo spoke on the different therapeutic effects of different compounds in cannabis - their synergy working together - and their potential uses as medicine.
- Contact Joy Blackburn at 714-9145 or email jblackburn@dailynews.vi.
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