Pharmaceutical corporation, Green Thumb Industries, is highly known for its legal distribution of medical cannabis and marijuana accessories. Being based out of Chicago, Illinois the company’s recent main focus has been to expand and market all of its products throughout the United States. Exceeding that goal, the business has propelled itself, not only into a total of 14 states such as Massachusetts, Nevada, and New Jersey but is starting to achieve global exposure by opening its first-ever out-of-country branch in Puerto Rico. This, however, does not put a pause in any of their plans as they continue to climb the ladder to success by spending approximately $150 million on 40 acres of land in order to ensure the success rate of their newest branch located in Warwick, New York.
Given the appropriate name as the ‘cannabis campus,’ the company reportedly plans on loading over thousands of pounds of cannabis, cannabis oil, and THC edibles by the end of 2023. Founder and current CEO Ben Kolver gave his thoughts on the subject with the following statement: “We understand what happened with the War on Drugs. And we are planning to flip that around. Change is really in the air, change is happening in the country, change is happening here. And we are able to go from a place where people used to be locked up for marijuana [to one] where we are going to employ people and enable opportunity, create wealth and create a positive economic environment.”
The specific spot of land that the 42-year-old CEO purchased was initially the home of the Mid-Orange Correctional Facility back in the late 1970s, where people were put away for years after being caught for possession of marijuana; the land has been vacant ever since Governor Andrew Cuomo officially shut the doors in 2011. “The irony of building a cannabis facility near the grounds of what used to be a federal prison is not lost on us,” Kolver stated in a public interview. It is still unclear when all of the buildings will be up and when the construction will be clear, but it is safe to assume that whenever that may be, customers will undoubtedly pick their spot in line.