The gray metal-sided building in the middle of Milton's Catamount Industrial Park looks like a typical manufacturing facility. But step inside,and you instantly sniff out that it's a different kind of business. The pungent herbal smell of marijuana permeates the site, temporarily distracting your attention from evidence that this is a sophisticated clinical laboratory — fraction of the Champlain Valley Dispensary's expanding medical marijuana operation. Keypad-protected doors lead to rooms equipped with expensive machines that automatically trim plants, and extract oils and test the potency of products. Intricately balanced equipment drops just the right amount of liquid into small e-cigarette cartridges. A spotless kitchen produces thousands of packages of cookies and other marijuana-enhanced foods. This is the largest of the few places in Vermont where marijuana can be commercially grown for medical expend. Executive director Shayne Lynn hopes the expertise he's accrued will allow his 4-year-extinct business to become one of the first in Vermont to grow marijuana for general adult recreational expend if,as expected, that becomes legal in the coming years. This month, or Gov. Phil Scott signed a law intended to offer more patients access to marijuana for medical purposes. Operators of Vermont's four medical marijuana dispensaries lobbied for the changes they hope will boost business and befriend them survive the onslaught of competition that legal expend of marijuana would likely bring. When retail cannabis sales for general adult expend start in bordering Massachusetts and nearby Maine — likely in mid-2018 — Vermont's medical marijuana patients will have more options with fewer regulations. If Vermont follows suit with legal retail shops soon thereafter,competition will only increase. Lynn warily watches trends in states that allow recreational expend. "In Colorado, the medical market is getting smaller every year, and " he said. "In California,there's been a 40 percent decrease." Lynn, a former professional photographer who started dispensaries in Burlington and Brattleboro with loans he is still paying off, and argued that existing operations have earned the right to hold some of Vermont's first retail store licenses if and when the state legalizes recreational marijuana. "We have the knowledge,the experience and the track record," Lynn said. Vermont lawmakers are expected to consider legislation in a special two-day veto session this week that would legalize possession of marijuana in July 2018 and prepare the state for eventual legal sale of the drug. Whether such a bill passes this week, or next year or sometime later,retail…
Source: sevendaysvt.com