I was like a kid the night before Christmas. Giddy with excitement. I had my outfit washed & laid out on my bed. My camera battery was charged. I closed my eyes but I don’t think I slept a wink.
“Tomorrow I’m going to tour my first grow!”, I thought to myself in disbelief.
“This must be it.”, said my friend, Dori, as we turned onto a quiet street in the old, industrial end of Hagerstown. It was pretty un-assuming from the outside. A massive, pale yellow building, riddled with cameras. We were buzzed into the gated parking lot and met at the door by a cheery man in a stark white lab coat. “I’m Dave, by the way, I don’t think we’ve met.” he said politely as we shook hands.
He ushered us inside where a lady took our ID’s and made visitor passes for us. They had to be worn and visible at all times. We were briefed on the rules. Don’t touch anything. No cameras. No outside contaminants. He led us down a series of white hallways until we reached the employee changing area. He gave us each a ‘Nature’s Heritage’ lab coat and surgical booties to cover our shoes. And so began the tour!
The whole thing was set straight out of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. We followed Dave down several long, white hallways and he would buzz us into the next door which opened up to more long white hallways. If it wasn’t for the map posted on the wall every few feet I would’ve been lost. He explained that the building was the old Statton Furniture Manufacturing Plant and had an 11 million dollar rehab done to convert it into what it is now, Kind Therapeutics USA.
I knew we had to be getting close to the grow rooms because the odor was getting stronger and stronger. What happened next was something I won’t ever forget. We reached two steel fire doors where I could faintly hear music playing on the other side. When he buzzed us in it was like getting smacked in the face with pure terpene goodness. When I say my mood instantly went from anxious to bliss I am not exaggerating. At the max volume on this bluetooth speaker bellowed the first guitar riff from Cage the Elephant’s ‘Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked’. I turned to look at Dori and we smiled. This was heaven. “They think the music is good for the plants!”, Dave shouted over the bass. “I’m sure!” said Dori, “It’s good for the worker’s too!”. We all laughed.
He began to discuss the life cycle of the cannabis plant, noting that their facility does not grow from seed- only clones. The first room he took us to was the mothers. ‘Mothers’ are grown specifically for cloning purposes and are kept in a constant vegetative stage. The plants were massive, and almost ornamental in value- like a Christmas tree- or a bonsai. The next couple rooms were all different strains in various stages of the flowering cycle. Each time we buzzed into a door the terpenes were enough to knock you off your feet. It smelled like the dispensary does- times a thousand.
My favorite was a room full of ‘Oro Blanco’, an indica-dominant hybrid from Nature’s Heritage. It was set to harvest the next day so it was essentially full grown. The buds were heavy and frosted in trichomes. The sweet diesel-y aroma was so strong it almost gave me a headache. After that we toured the cloning room, the trimming room, the drying room, and the lab where they do CO2 extractions. The first thing I noticed is that everyone who works here seems genuinely happy to be there. We were greeted with smiles and waves as we entered every room.
Policies are ever-changing and the recent decision to allow the sale of edibles in Maryland is going to greatly and positively impact many patients who do not seek the benefit from smoking cannabis, rather ingesting it in the form of mints, hard candies, and gummies. Dave showed us the beginning of the construction on the edibles kitchen- but that’s not the only expansion they will be doing this year- another wing of grow rooms and a Hydro-Carbon extractor will be added soon.
I am shocked by the thoughtful precision that the folks here at Kind Therapeutics have put into every square inch of their facility. From the state-of-the-art grow rooms to their strict purity standards- there is much to be proud of here- but at the end of the day, giving the patients of Maryland access to safe & reliable cannabis is the goal, and they’re doing just that.
