A new medical marijuana facility is set to go up in Chatham-Kent.
It will be built on a 5 acre site on Hwy. 3 just east of Wheatley, with construction expected to start as soon as the fall of 2017.
The company behind it is J.P. Mariwell, which has been working on getting approval from Health Canada for about three years.
Company President Paul Greco says, at this point, the government is reviewing their procedures in detail including their building design and their security measures.
Once that is done, the company will need to pass a pre-licensing inspection and then, once a crop cycle is complete, there will be one final inspection before they can get a license to grow and sell the cannabis.
"We're very excited about our plans," says Greco. "We're excited about getting our business off the ground, building in the community, the investment, and the job opportunities that will be available."
Greco says the company's initial goal is to build a facility capable of producing about 6,000 kg of premium medical cannabis per year.
But they probably won't be stopping there.
"Our anticipation is to continue to grow as the market develops and as we get better clarity from the government on the direction that they're heading," says Greco, adding they have a lot of room to grow. "The facility is on a much larger farm -- a 170 acre parcel -- we have five acres that we're currently going to utilize for the facility and the infrastructure that's required for that."
The federal government is planning to legalize recreational marijuana by July 1, 2018.