Pubdate: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL) Copyright: 2014 Orlando Sentinel Contact: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325 Author: Scott Powers Page: A1 LOCAL NURSERIES HOPE TO SEE GREEN IN MEDICAL POT Nursery workers scrubbed their hands and put on robes and hair nets before entering a 46-degree processing room, ready to prep organic thyme arriving on conveyors from a greenhouse with computer-controlled climate. Kerry's Nursery owner Kerry Herndon envisions them working someday with marijuana. Last week Gov. Rick Scott signed the so-called "Charlotte's Web" medical-marijuana law legalizing growth, processing, distribution and sale of a non-euphoric variety of cannabis. Herndon, a believer in both the medicinal and economic prospects of Charlotte's Web, is on board. "It's past time. The Florida Legislature did a very courageous thing," the Apopka nursery owner said. Whether at Kerry's, with greenhouses on Keene Road and Fudge Road, or another area nursery, there's a good chance Apopka will be a center of Florida's soon-to-emerge legal-marijuana industry. "It's an issue that's coming from outside of Apopka. We have to deal with it in a forthright and open manner," said Apopka Mayor Joe Kilsheimer. "We're not going to be able to avoid it." Charlotte's Web cannabis could be just the start. In November, voters will be asked to expand Florida's legal-medical-marijuana trade to include all forms of pot. If Amendment 2 is approved, many observers suspect that the companies that get Charlotte's Web licenses will have inside tracks for the much bigger business of coming years. Statewide, there will be five regional licenses. Just 39 companies - and 10 in the Apopka-Winter Garden-Mount Dora area - could qualify because they sell at least 400,000 plants a year and have at least 30 years of continuous operation under one ownership. Kerry's position as a qualified company, and Herndon's interest, has made him popular with companies and entrepreneurs, many from out of state, who want to become partners and get in on the ground floor. "I have been contacted by a lot of crazy people who want to be my new best friends," Herndon said. "I'm just a grower." It's heady stuff for greenhouse owners such as Herndon who might be great nurserymen and savvy businessmen but are not marijuana distributors. There are more area nurseries that are not quite big and old enough, under state rules, but are hoping for a next round of licenses that might open eligibility. "I think it's silly," said Gail Hess of Landscape Nursery, which she and her husband have owned on South Apopka -Vineland Road for 32 years. But it's too small, peaking at 300,000 plants a year. "We could be ready. We've already got greenhouses. We've already got irrigation systems. We have a full-time [state-certified professional] grower. I don't know what the problem is." It's an industry looking for a new cash crop. Nurserymen were hit hard both by the recession and by changing markets, as big-box-store companies rapidly gained more control of plant sales, driving down wholesale prices, said Ben Bolusky, chief executive officer of the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association. "Most growers have never seen the downturn they experienced during what we call the Great Recession. There were probably, I would guess, somewhere between 20 [percent] and 30 percent of the growing operations that went under," he said. "The industry lost 89,000 jobs" in Florida, he continued. "A lot of growers and landscape firms reduced the size of their staffs. They're having to do more with less, having to reinvent themselves, finding that niche in the marketplace that makes sense for them." Many nurseries are interested in cannabis, he said, but no one can commit yet. "All eyes are on the Department of Health to see what sort of rule-making they propose," Bolusky said. "We've not heard from them." For now growers know nothing about how the licenses will be awarded, how much they will cost, what minimum standards nurseries must meet for everything from security to equipment, or how the products could be sold. The department has set a daylong workshop July 7 in Tallahassee to begin the rulewriting process. Most of the qualified big growers are family-run businesses such as Herndon's and Hess'. So the prospect of growing marijuana also raises ethical and moral concerns, Bolusky said. For Herndon there are no such qualms. The cannabis variety that produces Charlotte's Web extract must have a high concentration of CBD oil, which is used to treat neurological disorders, and a low concentrate of THC oil, which gets people high. Herndon has been researching CBD carefully. "It's astonishing to me how many wonderful properties it has to help so many people. ... Yet it's been illegal. It doesn't make any sense to me," he said. "The CBD doesn't make you high. It just makes you healthy if you have neurological problems." - --- MAP posted-by: Matt