Medical marijuana's chicken or egg problem

It’s an existential question that went overlooked in state regulations: criminal laws — both federal and state — prohibit possession of marijuana.

So where can the four companies licensed to grow medical marijuana in Connecticut get the first plants or seeds they need to start cultivating their crops?

Wisely, perhaps, they have declined to say.

The first-crop dilemma is a “big, nebulous space,” said Ethan Ruby, of Theraplant, which is preparing a grow facility in Watertown.

“What we’ve done with our genetics and how we grow and what we do with the medicine is proprietary,” Ruby said. “But I am 100 percent absolutely not bringing in any plants of any type into our facility. I don’t want to do anything illegal or potentially jeopardizing our license.”

David Lipton, of Advanced Grow Labs of West Haven, dismissed the question, calling it a trade secret.

But there’s some relief knowing that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has declared they won’t be targeted. And Connecticut’s rather strict regulations provide further comfort, because the so-called first-seed issue, which was a contentious part of the legislative debate for years before medical cannabis was finally approved in 2012, is not addressed at all.

“We’re not enforcing federal law,” said William M. Rubenstein, commissioner of the state Department of Consumer Protection, which drafted the regulations and who has adopted a don’t-ask, don’t-tell attitude. When asked how growers will start their inventories, Rubenstein said “To be blunt, there are plants already in the state.”

Chris Walsh, managing editor of the Rhode Island-based CannaBusiness Media, which includes the Medical Marijuana Business Daily, said the dynamics of how legal growers actually obtain seeds or starter plants is conveniently ignored around the country.

“One of those issues that’s kind of not talked about is how you start the first crop,” Walsh said last week. “Often, laws don’t address that, and local officials look the other way. Marijuana is pretty prevalent in most communities.”

Growers can obtain seeds from other states and bring them into Connecticut illegally as well, Walsh said.

“There are so many ways to get started and obtain cannabis, with the assumption that law enforcement will look other way,” Walsh said. “Anyone who’s getting into the marijuana business on the cultivation side knows how to grow it and probably has been growing it in some fashion. It’s an existential debate on getting started. We haven’t seen local officials trying to track the arrival of seed or plants.”

kdixon@ctpost.com; 860-549-4670; twitter.com/KenDixonCT; facebook.com/kendixonct.hearst; blog.ctnews.com/dixon

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Medical marijuana's chicken or egg problem