The New Mexico Department of Health has filed an emergency rule change that raises the plant-per-grower limit from 450 to 2,500, the Globe Newswire reports.
Previous rules, set temporarily by a judge’s order last year, expired at the end of last week. Had the Department of Health not issued new emergency rules, there would’ve been no limit on the number of plants each grower could grow. The new limit is also temporary, set to expire in 180 days on August 28, 2019.
“We see meaningful progress in the movement to potentially 87,500 plants statewide. Over the next 180 days, we pledge to assist the State in crossing the finish line with an even greater commitment to the number of plants grown and the amount patients can individually purchase in the regulated market.” —Duke Rodriguez, CEO and President of Ultra Health, New Mexico’s largest cannabis producer
The final number must meet the definition of “adequate supply” within New Mexico’s Compassionate Use Act: “an amount of cannabis, in any form approved by the department, possessed by a qualified patient or collectively possessed by a qualified patient and the qualified patient’s primary caregiver that is determined by rule of the department to be no more than reasonably necessary to ensure the uninterrupted availability of cannabis for a period of three months and that is derived solely from an intrastate source.”
Regulators and medical cannabis operators now intend to investigate further the ideal number of plants per grower to best accommodate market growth and a robust program for New Mexico‘s 70,000 registered patients.
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