A Leamington medical marijuana operation has been given all government approvals to grow, harvest and sell the drug.
The pot plants are grown inside a Leamington greenhouse with stringent regulations and high security.
Aphria CEO Vic Neufeld says receiving the license from Health Canada last week was both exciting and long overdue. "We've dotted every I and crossed every T over a month ago and all of our conversations to date with the field inspectors indicated that our file was clean," says Neufeld. "We started to get concerned that there was some political interference, but that was not the case."
The company is now taking registrations from people with a medical marijuana license through its website. In about two weeks time, the company says it will be able to ship the pot right to the homes of patients.
The company has 15 full-time employees, but Neufeld expects that to double in about a year. "We know we need to really continue to grow the area of quality assurance and quality control," says Neufeld. "Our plans are to start off with our own microbiology lab and then a full testing lab a year down the road. We have expansion plans that will literally triple our footprint."