President Trump installed Session’s chief of staff, Matt Whitaker as acting attorney general -- an official hardly considered weed-friendly. A former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, Whitaker cited his success “reducing the availability of meth, cocaine, and marijuana in our communities” in a resignation letter to President Barack Obama in 2009.
Yet for all those concerns, Innovative is also managing to help other businesses thrive.
Financing Troubles
For Vireo Health, a medical marijuana producer that operates out of an Innovative facility in Johnstown, New York, the company solved its financing difficulties.
“It’s not as if we could go into a commercial bank and get a mortgage on manufacturing facilities,” said Ari Hoffnung, Vireo Health’s chief executive. “Cannabis companies have to finance long-term assets with cash and that’s difficult and challenging for any business.”
The Vireo facility, on the site of the former Tryon Residential Center for Boys, which closed in 2010, is about 200 miles north of New York City. Innovative’s properties are also located in Arizona, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado and Pennsylvania and it’s looking to enter California.
Michigan Referendum
On Tuesday, voters in Michigan, where Innovative is developing a facility for producer Green Peak Innovations, approved marijuana for recreational use. When Greek Peak hosted a job fair in October, it drew more than 500 applicants.
PharmaCann, which runs the 127,000-square-foot Hamptonburgh facility, said it spent $30 million to set up its business and comply with New York’s regulations.
Working with Innovative “allowed us to take that $30 million and recruit our director of research and development, to outfit the facility with equipment and develop processes that New York state accepts,” said Jeremy Unruh, PharmaCann’s director of public and regulatory affairs.