FruityBud
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Pounds and pounds of pot, and it's all legal. As a bill to allow medical marijuana in Tennessee is being debated by lawmakers, Eyewitness News went inside the only legal pot farm in the U.S. It's right here in the Mid-South.
Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly oversees the University of Mississippi Marijuana Project.
"We are charged with growing, harvesting, manicuring of cannabis for research purposes and also the manufacturing of cigarettes for the same purpose," said ElSohly.
From seedlings to fully grown plants, for more than 30 years, ElSohly's overseen the facility that sees the production of pot from start to finish. The marijuana is shipped off to be used for a number of medical purposes, everything from cancer patients to people with glaucoma. But ElSohly says marijuana cigarettes aren't the solution.
"This is a good plant, a good drug, said ElSohly. But it just needs to be used in the right way of using a drug which is some other way besides smoking it."
ElSohly says most benefits from marijuana come from THC. When you smoke it, you inhale thousands of other chemicals along with the THC. His lab is working on other ways to ingest it. Until there's a more controlled way to prescribe the drug, he doesn't think it should be legal.
"I'd venture to say more than 90-percent of material produced and used in California is by people that are not sick, but by people who are using it for recreational use," said ElSohly.
Scientists at the facility are also helping law enforcement agencies by studying the illegal pot confiscated on the streets. Right next to the thousands of pounds of legal pot grown and cultivated at this facility are the bags of confiscated cannabis.
Over the years, ElSohly has seen pot in every way shape and form. When drug enforcement officers make drug busts, evidence is sent to his lab for testing.
"All of the samples that are seized under those conditions, we get samples for the analysis for the purpose of staying on top of what people are using on the street," said ElSohly.
The lab has taken in samples from nearly 70,000 cases.
"There is an increase in the number of seizures and the potency of the material that's being seized," said ElSohly.
The samples are broken down and analyzed to determine their potency, or the percentage of THC inside.
It's the high-potency results that have ElSohly concerned. Hes seen THC percentages go from 1-percent in the 70s and 3 or 4-percent in the 80s to 10-percent in recent years.
"There are a lot more reports about kids getting into the Emergency Room because of high-potency marijuana," said ElSohly.
He says its also a lot more addictive.
hxxp://tinyurl.com/yj8wfdt
Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly oversees the University of Mississippi Marijuana Project.
"We are charged with growing, harvesting, manicuring of cannabis for research purposes and also the manufacturing of cigarettes for the same purpose," said ElSohly.
From seedlings to fully grown plants, for more than 30 years, ElSohly's overseen the facility that sees the production of pot from start to finish. The marijuana is shipped off to be used for a number of medical purposes, everything from cancer patients to people with glaucoma. But ElSohly says marijuana cigarettes aren't the solution.
"This is a good plant, a good drug, said ElSohly. But it just needs to be used in the right way of using a drug which is some other way besides smoking it."
ElSohly says most benefits from marijuana come from THC. When you smoke it, you inhale thousands of other chemicals along with the THC. His lab is working on other ways to ingest it. Until there's a more controlled way to prescribe the drug, he doesn't think it should be legal.
"I'd venture to say more than 90-percent of material produced and used in California is by people that are not sick, but by people who are using it for recreational use," said ElSohly.
Scientists at the facility are also helping law enforcement agencies by studying the illegal pot confiscated on the streets. Right next to the thousands of pounds of legal pot grown and cultivated at this facility are the bags of confiscated cannabis.
Over the years, ElSohly has seen pot in every way shape and form. When drug enforcement officers make drug busts, evidence is sent to his lab for testing.
"All of the samples that are seized under those conditions, we get samples for the analysis for the purpose of staying on top of what people are using on the street," said ElSohly.
The lab has taken in samples from nearly 70,000 cases.
"There is an increase in the number of seizures and the potency of the material that's being seized," said ElSohly.
The samples are broken down and analyzed to determine their potency, or the percentage of THC inside.
It's the high-potency results that have ElSohly concerned. Hes seen THC percentages go from 1-percent in the 70s and 3 or 4-percent in the 80s to 10-percent in recent years.
"There are a lot more reports about kids getting into the Emergency Room because of high-potency marijuana," said ElSohly.
He says its also a lot more addictive.
hxxp://tinyurl.com/yj8wfdt
