Manoa Botanicals Approved to Acquire and Grow Marijuana

The Hawaiʻi State Department of Health issued a Notice to Proceed to Acquire and Cultivate Marijuana to Manoa Botanicals LLC for their production center on Oʻahu.

Manoa Botanicals is the third licensee to receive notice from the state and the second Oʻahu licensee to meet all requirements to begin growing marijuana.

Big Island Now stock photo. June 2016.

Manoa Botanicals is now authorized to acquire and grow marijuana seeds, clones and plants, for the purpose of providing marijuana and marijuana products to qualified patients registered with the department’s Medical Marijuana Patient Registry Program.

On Feb. 1, the first Notices to Proceed were issued to Maui Grown Therapies and Aloha Green Holdings, Inc. for production centers on Maui and Oʻahu respectively.

The DOH plans to inspect additional production centers on Maui and Kauaʻi later this month when the licensees inform the state that they are ready for inspection.

Dispensary production centers must comply with statutory and regulatory requirements that include building a secure, enclosed indoor facility; operating a computer software tracking system that interfaces with the state’s system and submits current inventory data of all marijuana seeds, plants and manufactured products in the production center; and authorization from the Narcotics Enforcement Division of the Hawaii State Department of Public Safety.

A total of eight medical marijuana dispensary licenses were issued in April 2016.

Three dispensary licenses for the City and County of Honolulu were issued to Aloha Green Holdings, Inc.; Manoa Botanicals, LLC; and TCG Retro Market 1, LLC dba Cure Oʻahu. Two licenses for the County of Hawaiʻi were issued to Hawaiian Ethos, LLC and Lau Ola, LLC. Two licenses for the County of Maui were issued to Maui Wellness Group, LLC and Pono Life Sciences Maui, LLC. One license for the County of Kauaʻi was issued to Green Aloha, Ltd.

Each dispensary licensee is allowed to operate two production centers and two retail sites for a total of 16 production centers and 16 retail dispensary locations statewide. Each production center may grow up to 3,000 marijuana plants.

More information on the Medical Marijuana Dispensary Program is available here.