A newly granted growing license means ECS Botanics (ASX:ECS)  can start preparing a facility to grow medical cannabis in Tasmania.

The company says the licence will allow it to grow cannabis once they have a permit, produce resin for medical purposes, and handle the logistics of storing and moving a regulated product.

ECS received a manufacturing licence last month.

The cannabis regulatory system requires companies to first apply for a licence, which is an acknowledgement from the Office of Drug Control the company is a fit and proper entity and can start preparing a site on which to handle cannabis.

To start growing or producing cannabis products, companies must apply for a permit which stipulates how much and what it can produce.

The system has been criticised by companies and social entities alike, including the NSW Country Women’s Association, for being too cumbersome and restrictive.

ECS managing director Alex Keach says the latest licence sets them up for 2020, but offered no new updates on the company’s “innovative approach” to becoming a medical cannabis and hemp business.

In July 2019, ECS ‘backdoor-listed’ on to the ASX as a hemp company with in-house and contract sources of hemp in Tasmania, wholesale processing facilities, and its own retail food brand.

 

In other pot news:

Althea Group (ASX:AGH) says it is selling cannabis to 4,000 people now, with an average of 35 new patients being added every day. In November 2018, Althea told Stockhead it wanted to reach 1,000 patients by this time. There are now 408 Australian doctors who have prescribed Althea’s products.

Roots Sustainable Agricultural Technologies (ASX:ROO) says that a trial of its Root Zone Temperature Optimization technology cooled the roots of peas and beans to the extent they achieved 57 per cent to 67 per cent more pods yield per plant for both the peas and beans when compared with uncooled plants.

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