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Niagara County plan targets medical marijuana

Mike Desmond/wbfo news

Niagara County legislators Tuesday night backed a Lewiston site for a medical marijuana manufacturing plant.

Albany wants five manufacturers for the pot oil and once regulations for the law allowing the manufacturing are approved, the five will be picked.

Owners of what is now H2Gro which produces tomatoes want to shift products and grow pot under the name Herbal Agriculture. That name change is part of an application process which might cost $1 million.

Legislator Kathryn Lance is a cancer survivor and says she would have tried marijuana oil to ease treatment problems.

"During my treatment, during the chemotherapy I did suffer from neuropathy. I suffered from a lot of pain and I did not find any relief in taking any of the drugs that they gave me," Lance said.

"The codeine, the morphine, the Demerol, it just didn't help me. So, I would definitely have to say this is something that I think would be worth trying, absolutely."

Other legislators say they backed the idea because they were convinced of the security Albany requires for any site growing pot and producing the medical marijuana.

Co-owner Gary Smith says his group has the exclusive license to a type of pot with very low levels of the chemical which makes people stoned while maintaining the medical treatment power.
 

Mike Desmond is one of Western New York’s most experienced reporters, having spent nearly a half-century covering the region for newspapers, television stations and public radio. He has been with WBFO and its predecessor, WNED-AM, since 1988. As a reporter for WBFO, he has covered literally thousands of stories involving education, science, business, the environment and many other issues. Mike has been a long-time theater reviewer for a variety of publications and was formerly a part-time reporter for The New York Times.