Price, who owns and operates Fiddlehop Farms in Glenholme, is the president of The Truro Herbal Co. (The THC) and received word that an application to Health Canada to produce medical marijuana was accepted for license review.
“It’s a five-step process and we’ve passed the first stage,” said Price, president of The THC. “The first step was the application, which addresses all the key portions of the Act and a lot went into making sure all of Health Canada’s regulations were met in the application.”
Price said the application step is the “hardest hurdle” in becoming a licensed medical marijuana producer.
“We were writing the documents blind,” he said, adding any requests for additional information on some sections was vague. What started as an 80-page application quickly turned into more than 300.
“There was one section that was an additional 50 pages we had to provide,” he said.
But the hard work paid off when Price and the others with The THC learned their application was accepted for license review.
The next step is getting acceptance of the staff and directors.
“They have to do a check of their security background, to see if there are any red flags to organized crime or anything like that.”
Then comes obtaining the right to begin construction, starting construction, followed by getting security systems approved and then the growing period.
“We’re looking at early 2015 for having product for medical users,” Price said.
The plan is to build a 15,000 square foot facility in the Truro Industrial Park, which will have about 35 to 50 employed. Currently there are 14 founding shareholders and investors in the venture.
“We’ll figure out our needs as we go along,” he said.
When it comes to the new venture’s name, Price said it’s really a nod to the local community.
“We thought it was important to recognize where we were going to be doing the production, so we came up with The Truro Herbal Company, but we’ll be going with The THC.”
Twitter: @TDNRaissa
