Puerto Rico's pot boom? Medical marijuana industry touts growth, despite challenges

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The government and industry proponents project that the cannabis program could generate $100,000,000 in new tax revenue by 2020 and create 20,000 jobs.

around 72,000 patients have signed up for the program run by the Department of Health. The office's goal is to register 100,000 new patients by the end of the year.

“This thing works. It’s the real deal," said Rosa, who has survived cancer twice, in 2011 and 2013. He credits medical cannabis with greatly helping him during his treatments. “You can’t run from the haunting of cancer, but you can at least live more at ease so that your body can heal."His experience inspired him to create his own medicinal marijuana line with the highest possible concentration of CBD.

“People are looking for alternatives to chemicals that have secondary side effects," Carmen Serrano, CEO of NextGen Pharma, told NBC News. Banking is the biggest challenge, according to Julian Londoño, vice president of the Puerto Rico Medical Cannabis Association and a managing partner at NextGen Pharma.

Apart from banking issues, informing the public and law enforcement about medicinal marijuana is a constant challenge. Some patients like Rivera say that while they have greatly benefited from medicinal marijuana, they have to keep an eye on costs.

 

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The cannabis industry be like...

And that’s the true reason for legalization. They want to tax it

God only knows what this does to the overall mentality of this country.

Well if this country keep ignoring them and treating them as third class citizens money has to come from somewhere

Pot bubble. Somebody will lose.

Republicans will rant and rave against this while they are hiding investment from their poor unsuspecting base.

I thought it was already ..I'm sorry that was the DEA making it off the people selling it and throwing them in jail.But now the government says lets make money together

The government always kills the golden goose.

The problem is who will get the profits.

Well, money is involved so here come the compassionate conservatives

Twenty what?

Come on Zimbabwe; I hear our climate EXCELLENT for growing medical weed. And it needed little or no care as it is a “weed”!

That's what I'm talking about. I got to get in.

Haha yeah right. Ask California how that worked out. They taxed themselves out of the market and now the black market is thriving and acting with immunity.

Right because everyone in PR is so rich...... Real money is in recreational marijuana.

I know people that are so greedy that they would charge twenty dollars for a gram of cannabis. Just so they can go out and buy themselves a gram of cocaine. Now , federally legal cannabis will end that. I do not need you to get my cannabis. You can not price gouge me.

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