February 2019 - 14

duets
BY PETER KONJOIAN AND MIKE MARQUEZ
Greenhouse Production of Cannabis: Are Existing Growers a Good Fit?
Peter: That's interesting regarding
condition, intractable epilepsy. To your
question, the differences are based more
on where you're producing cannabis, not
whether it's med or rec. Most of the time
medical cannabis is grown right next to
recreational cannabis.
Regarding production, the only
Peter Konjoian is president of Konjoian's Horticulture Education
Services Inc. His career spans four decades as a commercial grower,
researcher and consultant. Mike Marquez is seminar director for
the Indo Expo Cannabis Trade Show. Konjoian can be reached at
peterkfes@comcast.net.
oining us is Mike Marquez, seminar
director for the Indo Expo Cannabis
Trade Show. His responsibilities
include finding, vetting and booking
speakers for multi-track education
programs for annual shows in California,
Oregon and Colorado that attract more
than 10,000 attendees. His 10 years
of experience in the cannabis industry
includes hydroponic sales, retail sales,
large scale cultivation, extraction and
business development. Mike is currently
working on his " Battlefield " MBA.
Peter: Mike, welcome to the
commercial horticulture world. We're
excited to learn from a cannabis
industry professional with experience
in conference education. As you are
no doubt aware, there is an interested
group of traditional greenhouse
growers eager to learn more about
cannabis. This group sees the crop as
similar, production wise, to poinsettia
or tomato. As greenhouse cannabis
production gains traction, my advice to
fellow growers is " Why not us? " Please
frame the big picture in terms of the
differences between the medical and
recreational sectors.
Mike: For medical and recreational
cannabis the differences are literally
all over the map. Some states require
vertical integration (internal supply
chain); others don't. There are states
like Texas that have very limited
programs that only include one medical
J
difference between medical and
recreational is purely regulatory. The
" Seed to Sale " tracking systems follow
each plant through its life cycle and up
to sale. This tag designates whether it's
medical or recreational. In some states
medical is attached to a patient base that
controls how many plants you can grow.
For recreational, some states limit the
number of plants that can be grown and
others base it on canopy or building size.
Peter: You weren't kidding, that really is
all over the map. We'll get to federal law
in a bit; for now we're safe saying it's the
source of much of the confusion growers
must decipher. It does appear, however,
that states recently legalizing either
medical or recreational, or considering
to legalize, have learned a lot from early
adopter states like Colorado and Oregon.
I have several years of experience
serving the medical side of the industry
and have been quite impressed with the
professionalism I have encountered,
particularly the willingness of those I
deal with to seek crop production and
plant science advice from professional
horticulturists. My impression of the
recreational side of the industry is
different; it appears more casual and
loose. Is my impression typical?
Mike: That's an easy impression to
make, Peter, but I've seen recreational
cannabis grown under pristine
conditions and I've seen medical
operations that have no business
calling their product medicine. Residual
pesticides and fungicides from the
" pre-ban " days still pop up occasionally
in product tests, usually in concentrates.
25(b) products have been an issue in
the past for non-labeled ingredients like
pyrethrum and abamectin. Non-labelled
ingredients have caused products to fail
testing and recalls.
14 FEBRUARY 2019 GPNMAG.COM
your medical versus recreational
observation. My father had a saying
that with his first step into someone's
greenhouse he could tell what kind
of operation he was visiting. My
assumption has been that medical has
more regulatory pressure and, hence,
more effort expended in attention to
detail. Your opening comment did
reference that it's more about where
production is located than which product
category it is.
Explain more about the testing
and regulatory side; this is new to
horticulture. We have ornamental
growers whose quality standards focus
on plant size, shape, appearance, etc.
Some of these growers have expanded
into food crop production and have
learned that food safety standards
require a significantly higher level
of attention. As these commercial
growers diversify further into cannabis
production they need to climb several
rungs higher on the diligence ladder.
Mike: Testing is such an important
part of the production but it faces issues
with consistency, availability, cost and
accuracy. A lab in California recently
admitted to falsifying tests for growers.
I hear of labs passing product they
shouldn't and others not cleaning or
calibrating equipment properly leading
to unreliable test results.
There are companies whose primary
focus is to produce medicine, although
most of those companies are focusing
on alternative delivery methods rather
than smoking. Examples include topicals,
patches, nasal spray, suppositories,
capsules, inhalers, tinctures, gummies, etc.
Some alternate methods of delivery - like
suppositories, nasal sprays and inhalers -
have faced criticism and outright bans over
safety concerns.
Each state is its own microcosm of
regulation created from scratch or based
on other frameworks. Some states like
Washington and Oregon use the existing
liquor control structure for regulating
cannabis. Oklahoma is regulated by the
department of health and Texas the
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February 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of February 2019
