Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Archives for Drugs

State Patrol reminding drivers today: pot use not legal

By

Today is an unofficial holiday for marijuana users, which has prompted an enforcement campaign from the Iowa State Patrol.

“The term 4/20 is synonymous with drug use, so that’s why we’re conducting this project (today) through Sunday.” That’s Iowa State Patrol Sergeant Nate Ludwig, who says drug-impaired driving is becoming a bigger issue on the state’s roads.

“I know the fatality rate attributed to those that are impaired has gone up over the last few years,” Ludwig says. “When people think of impaired driving, they just think of drunk driving from alcohol. But, it’s anything – whether you ingest it, absorb it, smoke it – anything that’s going to impair your cognitive ability to operate a vehicle is impaired driving.”

The Drug Impaired Driving enforcement campaign will involve more officers on roadways looking for erratic drivers who could be under the influence of drugs. Ludwig says many marijuana users believe it’s harmless to smoke-up and get behind the wheel.

“And they’re wrong because anytime you do that, the chemical that’s in it is going to slow your reaction time, impair your cognitive performance, and it’s going to make it more difficult for you to drive down the road and be safe,” Ludwig said.

The enforcement campaign involves Iowa and five other states; Arkansas, Kansas, Missoturi, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. The Lawrence, Kanas Police Department recently posted a message to Twitter saying “Hey potheads planning to toke up on 4/20, stay off the roads. Stock up on Cheetos and Mt. Dew before you spark.”

 

No plans to add any new medical marijuana dispensaries

By

Today is the deadline for companies to notify  the Iowa Department of Public Health they are interested in the second license to manufacture medical marijuana.

DPH deputy director Sarah Reisetter says while they can add a second manufacturer, there are no plans to offer more licenses to sell the products as  the law only allows five dispensary licenses. “For us to be able to offer additional dispensary licenses, the legislature would need to change the statute,” Reisetter explains.

A Cedar Rapids city council member called for more licenses after the recent awarding of licenses Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Windsor Heights, Waterloo and Davenport. He says some Iowans will have to drive a long way to get to the dispensaries.

Reisetter says the Health Department will keep an eye on the situation as the products start being distributed.”We will certainly collect information and we will collect feedback. We want to be a source of information for the people in the program,” Reisetter says. “Being the regulators and being the people who maintain the patient registry, we are a natural place to hear some of those concerns and questions that a patient may have.” She says there is another way for people in the program to provide feedback.

Reisetter says the Medical Cannabidiol board is another way for people to give input on changes in the law as she says the board makes an annual report to the Iowa Legislature on January 1st of every year. She says they will keep the board up to day and she says the board has a public comment period at every meeting. Reisetter says they want to be sure they are hearing from those involved in the program.

“Certainly we will provide feedback in terms of information that we are receiving, and our advisory board might decide to make a recommendation as well,” Reisetter says.

MedPharm Iowa is required to have the medical marijuana products available by December 1st of this year.

 

State offering a second license to manufacture medical marijuana

By

There’s another chance for those who want to get into Iowa’s new medical marijuana business to get a license to make the product.

Iowa Department of Public Health Deputy Director Sarah Reisetter says the law does allow two licenses to manufacture.  There were nine companies that showed interest the first time around — but only one followed through.

“We did follow up with some of them after the fact to find out and see why they decided not to apply,” Reisetter says. “During the course of some of those conversations and based on contacts that we’ve received consistently since that happened, we are pretty confident that there is still interest in another manufacturing license in Iowa, so we decided to proceed.”

The sole license to produce medical marijuana products was awarded to MedPharm Iowa in November. Reisetter says things happened pretty quickly after the law was passed and that was part of the reason some of the companies didn’t follow through in the fall. She says the companies need to get support from the community where they plan to build the production facility and there was not a lot of time for that to happen.

There are still a little more than 300 people who have gotten the cards needed to buy the cannibas oil products. Reisetter isn’t concerned that might keep another company from wanting to jump into the business. Reisetter says one of the things she learned from potential applicants who had experience in other states is that they are betting on the program expanding. She says MedPharm officials have said that as well. “While the patient pool is small right now we do anticipate it to grow as we get closer…to when the products are actually available in the state.”

Reisetter says if a second company is selected,  they would face the same timeline as MedPharm. “MedPharm was licensed December 1st of 2017 and they have until December 1st of 2018 so our second manufacturer will also have a year to get up and running,” Reisetter explains. The new license is expected to be awarded July 1st, and that would put the deadline for the second manufacturer to be running on July 1st of 2019. She says that company can begin making products as soon as it has the plant built and met all the requirements.

“It will be in their best interest to get things up and running as quickly as possible I think in terms of a competitive marketplace,” Reisetter says. MedPharm has the advantage of the being the first to produce products for the five state-licensed dispensaries. Reisetter says the state understands the jump start MedPharm has right now on a new production company.

“One of those things that we do have in those regulations for dispensaries is that dispensaries in our state are going to be required to make available products from both manufacturers,” according to Reisetter. “So we did adopt a regulation to try to account for that a little bit.”

Businesses have until May 16th to notify the state of their intent to apply for a medical marijuana license. Formal applications will be due by May 31st.

Conference focuses on children impacted by drug use

By

A variety of professionals from police to mental health providers are in central Iowa today for the Iowa Drug Endangered Children (DEC) Conference.

“The focus is really on children and how they may be impacted first or second hand from illicit drug activity. From the manufacturing to the sales, to use and in some cases, neglect,” according to Dale Woolery, the interim director of the Governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy. Woolery says children can be impacted in ways that sometimes can be easily identified and some that can’t.

“It may be physical abuse, it may be drug misuse or abuse, but sometimes it’s a case of neglect — which isn’t necessarily the intent of anyone to be abusive to child — but the net result is that in some cases you have young children who have to take on the roles of parents where there may be neglect by virtue of drug abuse or drug activity,” according to Woolery. He says they will talk about strategies for dealing with children caught up in these situations.

“The conference won’t get into individual cases so much, but will talk about scenarios and talk about how different drugs might impact families in different ways,” Woolery explains. “A good example would be with changes in marijuana policy in some parts of the nation and discussion about it here in Iowa, there are changes in attitudes on pieces of that.” Cases of opioid addition have dramatically increased in Iowa, and Woolery says it’s an issue that also impacts children.

“When we talk about opioids in the context of children, it’s really educating young children about medicines and their proper use,” he says, “and for the very young, it’s keeping the medicines from them. So, like household cleaners, they can’t get into them.” He says children are the most vulnerable Iowans — but handling cases involving drug endangerment don’t always have easy answers for those working with the kids.

“It’s a struggle, what’s best for the child — which tends to be the number one priority of a lot of the people at this conference — but also what’s best for the family. Which should also be best for the child. Sometimes the short-term answer is different from the long-term,” Woolery says. Some 300 people are expected to attend the conference at the Meadows Convention Center in Altoona.

 

Council member says Cedar Rapids should have a medical marijuana dispensary

By

Dale Todd

A Cedar Rapids City Council member wants Iowa’s medical marijuana law expanded after his city was passed over for a dispensary. Councilman Dale Todd says population should have been a greater factor in awarding the licenses.

“By not locating these dispensaries in places where there’s market share and a population is going to make it tough for these dispensaries to succeed,” Todd says. He says leaving out the state’s second largest city doesn’t help the people there who will need to use the products.

“The worst part is it’s going to make it challenging for some of the patients who need this medication,” according to Todd. The Department of Public Health awarded the maximum five distribution licenses allowed by the law to Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Windsor Heights, Waterloo and Davenport, with a goal of geographical diversity. Todd

hopes the state opens more dispensaries and expands the list of qualifying conditions. Todd’s son has epilepsy, which could make him eligible for a prescription.

“One of the options and one that we would encourage would be to ask the Iowa Legislature to evaluate this law and hopefully open up some other locations based on population and need and access,” he says. Todd has been pushing for medical marijuana access for years. His son has epilepsy, a condition that could qualify him for a prescription.

(Thanks to Kate Payne, Iowa Public Radio/Photo from City of Cedar Rapids webpage)

 

Sale of medical marijuana moves another step forward

By

The Iowa Department of Public Health Tuesday offered licenses to distribute medical marijuana to businesses which proposed building dispensaries in Council Bluffs, Sioux City, Windsor Heights, Waterloo, and Davenport.

Health Department spokesperson Sarah Reisetter says the companies were picked in part because of location to be able provide greater access to more patients. That is one of the reasons the last license went to a company in Waterloo.  “When we were analyzing that fifth license and we looked at the map it became very apparent that Waterloo was important in terms of geographical representation,” Reisetter says.

The licenses were offered to the Iowa Cannabis Company in Waterloo, Have a Heart Compassion Care for operations in Council Bluffs and Davenport and MedPharm for facilities in Windsor Heights and Sioux City. Each has until 9 a.m. today to accept the licenses. Once they accept, there’s more background work.

“The next thing that will happen is they will go through a background investigation through our Department of Public Safety,” Reisetter says, “and provided that the background investigation is successfully completed, they would start building out their dispensary.”

MedPharm Iowa was given the only license to produce the cannabis oil products that the dispensaries will sell to people who have been approved for prescriptions. MedPharm was created in a partnership with Des Moines-based Kemin Industries.

Kemin’s general manager of outsourcing services, Lucas Nelson, says once the marijuana has been crushed to extract the oil, there are state guidelines for getting rid of it.  He says they will take the plant material and grind it down very fine and then mix it with other composting material that will be shipped to a landfill.

Nelson says they will also take care of any unused cannabis oil.  “We’ll make sure that any oil that is returned — again this is part of a regulation — oil that is returned to a dispensary or that maybe falls out of spec along the line of developing our products, all of that will be disposed of in a similar way,” Nelson says. “Basically, we will make sure that it is rendered unrecognizable and unusable.”

MedPharm has a deadline of December 1st to deliver the products to the dispensaries.

(By Kay Payne, Iowa Public Radio/Radio Iowa’s Dar Danielson also contributed to this story)

State approves medical marijuana dispensaries for Council Bluffs, Davenport, Waterloo, Windsor Heights and Sioux City

By

The Iowa Department of Public Health has approved five licenses to distribute medical marijuana.

The department says it has offered dispensary licenses to Have a Heart Compassion Care for facilities in Council Bluffs and Davenport and one for the Iowa Cannabis Company in Waterloo. And it has also offered licenses for two MedPharm facilities in Windsor Heights and Sioux City. Those five have until 9 a.m. Wednesday to accept.

The information from the department says 10 other applicants met the requirements for a license, but will not be awarded one unless one of the first five applicants doesn’t take a license.  Those companies are:
CLIA, Des Moines
Have a Heart Compassion Care, for Des Moines and Sioux City
Iowa Cannabis Company  for Council Bluffs, Des Moines, Iowa City and Sioux City
MedPharm Iowa for  Cedar Rapids, Coralville, Davenport

Five other applicants did not meet the minimum requirement to obtain a license. They are:
Green Orchard Dispensary, Council Bluffs
Iowa Apothecarium for Cedar Falls, Davenport, Sioux City and Urbandale

Changes in the medical marijuana law allow for the five dispensaries to distribute the products created by MedPharm Iowa, which was the only company licensed to produce the products.

 

Construction of first Iowa medical marijuana grow operation on schedule

By

The only company licensed to produce medical marijuana in Iowa is moving forward with the construction of the facility where the plants will be grown and the cannabidiol oil will be extracted.

MedPharm is the company created in a partnership with Des Moines-based Kemin Industries to develop the medical marijuana. Lucas Nelson is the general manager of Kemin’s outsourcing services and oversees the MedPharm construction at the Kemin facility.

“That build out is going very well and we’re about two weeks from completing first phase. That phase involves some of the grow areas and also the office area. With that complete we’ll turn to the rest of our vegetative and flower rooms,” Nelson says. He says the growing rooms should be done by June and construction of the lab and the rest of the facility wrap up in September.

“That should put us on target with a couple of weeks to spare to hit our December 1st good to deliver product to dispensaries,” Nelson says. “We’re tracking very well, although that is a very aggressive deadline, we do anticipate hitting that — like I said — with few weeks to spare.” Some states like California have the climate to be able to grow the marijuana plants outdoors — but Nelson says Iowa’s climate requires growing everything indoors.

“This is a very, very controlled environment that these plants will live in, really their entire life cycle,” Nelson explains. “They’ll start in a large mother room, they’ll then move to separate grow rooms throughout their life cycle. And those rooms are controlled for humidity, temperature and light. Very specific controls to prevent any sort of biohazard, mites, other pests, that sort of thing.” The first plants will come from outside the facility.

“For security reasons we are not discussing where the originals are coming from,” according to Nelson. “As many growers can tell you — the interesting things is that once we have our first batch — we actually will be able to take cuttings from there and come up with the rest of our plants.” It will take roughly 10 weeks to get a plant to maturity.

“They’re actually shocked by changing the amount of light the plants are receiving, and that shocks the plant….into producing the flowers, the buds. And that process takes another 10 weeks for full flowering. Once we get to that stage, we’ll take the plants, we’ll harvest them and they’ll be dried for roughly a week, and that dried plant material is what’s ground and then the oil is extracted from there,” Nelson says. The amount of oil derived from each plant varies.

“For some of the trim and kind of the excess parts of the plants you can maybe get seven percent oil yield,” Nelson says. “For some of the other plants — especially if they are grown in some of the best conditions and monitored closely– we’re hoping to get possibly up to 20 to 25 percent oil yield.”

Once the oil is extracted the product will be sent out to five dispensaries. The process to award distribution licenses is still underway. Nelson says they will be key to getting feedback on the product.

“Those will be kind of the front line of understanding what patients are looking for, if they are receiving all the benefits. If they are clamoring for something else,” Nelson says. “Also, MedPharm is keeping a close eye on the industry across other states. As you can imagine, some of the more robust medical cannibus states have a lot more data coming out of them about what people are seeking.”

MedPharm does have an agreement with a Colorado company to share information on products and manufacturing techniques as it gets underway with producing the oil.

 

Health Department receives applications from 7 cities for medical marijuana distribution licenses

By

The Iowa Department of Public Health has received a total of 21 applications from seven companies that are competing for five licenses to distribute medical marijuana.

Most of them want to distribute from Davenport, Sioux City, Council Bluffs or Des Moines, but other cities on the list include Waterloo, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.   Sarah Reisette, at the Iowa Department of Public Health, says the turnout is lackluster.

“The number is lower than how many people indicated they were interested in applying for a license,” Reisetter says. “We had 71 locations signaled earlier, and then we ended up with 21 applications, so, significantly less than we thought.” The application window closed last week and Reisetter says it’s now up to the state health department to review the plans.

Reisetter says, “We have asked them to explain in narrative format what their business overview and plan looks like, how they’re going to operate their dispensary, how they plan to secure their facility.” Advocates had worried the state’s low potency rules might keep companies away. The department plans to hand out the licenses by April. Distribution to Iowans with approved medical conditions should start by December.

(Thanks to Kate Payne, Iowa Public Radio)

 

City council in Sioux City to consider supporting medical marijuana dispensary

By

Rhonda Capron

Sioux City leaders at their meeting tonight will consider approving a letter of support for a business that wants to distribute medical cannabis. Council member Rhonda Capron says she was contacted by Med Pharm, who was licensed to manufacture Medical Cannabis in Iowa in December and is applying for dispensary licenses in Iowa.

She says it is not marijuana, it is a prescription given by a doctor and Med Pharm and others are looking to come to Sioux City.

The Iowa Department of Public Health will issue licenses for five locations to dispense medical marijuana within Iowa, and Sioux City could be a dispensary site for western Iowa. Capron says the cannabis products would be used by patients suffering from a medical condition:

“Some of it would by MS, glaucoma, cancer patients, pain medication. So, there is a good thing that’s going to come out of this — and it’s not illegal,” Capron says. The Health Department is requiring the applicants to identify their locations of choice and provide an indication that the city would be supportive of having a dispensary in their community. Capron hopes her fellow council members will support the proposal.

“It just want everyone out there to know that we are being proactive and that we want to do the right thing,” Capron says. “Times are changing And I think if we can get people relief with medical cannabis and get them away from some of the heavier drugs — I think this might be a good answer for them.” The Iowa Department of Public Health has made it clear they will not approve a license for a dispensary if a community doesn’t want it.

(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)