Grow Ohio, a Level-1 cultivator with a $20-million facility in Zanesville, was awarded the first ever Processor Certificate of Operation by the Ohio Department of Commerce.

ZANESVILLE — What was once an illegal drug is now being harvested weekly in an environmentally controlled, highly secured facility about an hour east of Columbus.

Cannabis has been growing in Grow Ohio's $20 million facility in Muskingum County since Sept. 10. The first plants were harvested Jan. 23.

The plants are just the start of what Grow Ohio hopes will be a multi-dimensional cannabis operation. This month, the company became the first in the state to receive a Processor Certificate of Operation from the Ohio Department of Commerce, allowing it to manufacture products from cannabis.

>> Video: Marijuana plants mature at Grow Ohio

The company plans to produce a cannabis-based line that will include tincture, oil, gummies, capsules and topical creams. Officials hope to roll out the tinctures and oil in early April, the gummies in early-to-mid April, and the lotions and capsules shortly after, said Justin Hunt, executive vice president of Grow Ohio.

The products will be called Butterfly Effect to represent tranquility.

“One flap of the butterfly's wings can have such a magnitude of changes down the road, and that's really what we hope to have here,” said Josh Febus, director of sales for Grow Ohio. "Something that might seem as insignificant enough as a cultivation facility in Muskingum County can really transcend not only the stigma but help patients across the board change their lives, which we think we're doing here.”

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Medical marijuana became legal in Ohio on Sept. 8, 2016 through House Bill 523. Residents can consume marijuana and marijuana products if they receive a recommendation from a doctor. To receive a recommendation, they must have at least one of 21 conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, chronic pain or post-traumatic stress disorder.

“We are able to cultivate and produce medical marijuana here in the state of Ohio that will help patients that are struggling with some of the different qualifying medical conditions,” Hunt said.

Grow Ohio received one of 13 level-1 licenses (for operations up to 25,000 square feet). The state also awarded 13 level-2 licenses (up to 3,000 square feet). Ohio's first level-1 grower was Buckeye Relief, near Cleveland.

Two central Ohio recipients of level-1 provisional licenses — PharmaCann Ohio in Buckeye Lake and Ohio Grown Therapies in Johnstown — have not harvested marijuana yet.

Grow Ohio's facility is surrounded by a chain-link fence with security guards at the gate and the door. More than 100 cameras that the state can tap into monitor the facility.

Grow Ohio’s original 15 employees have expanded to roughly 80, most of them cultivators clad in blue suits resembling scrubs. Visitors must wear full-body Tyvek suits and be sprayed down with isopropyl alcohol if they go past the main lobby. Many of the rooms where the cannabis grows require visitors to wear hairnets and face masks.

The smell of marijuana hits visitors the moment they enter the lobby. The building is divided among vegetative, flower and transition rooms, all full of lush marijuana plants in various stages of growth. As the plants grow, they are moved from one room to the next until they reach full maturity after 170 days.

Temperature, humidity and lighting are carefully controlled in each room. Checkerboard high-pressure sodium lighting reaching up to 1,000 watts beams down on the growing plants while fans circulate air. A tag with a barcode accompanies each plant the moment it goes into a pot. Flags poke out of the soil with dates and numbers corresponding to the weight of the plants and how much water they have received.

"There's a lot that goes into every day of the 170 days of the growth cycle that's a big factor,” Hunt said. “It's not just: You put it in the pot and let it go for that long.”

In its first year, Grow Ohio plans to harvest 12,000 to 15,000 pounds of marijuana. When fully operational, the company expects to produce about 18,000 pounds a year.

Sales of medical marijuana started Jan. 16 in Wintersville at the CY+ dispensary, and statewide sales totaled 245 pounds and $1,854,900 through March 10. Just three weeks after the first sales were reported, the state issued the first citation for misusing medical marijuana.

Of the 56 dispensaries in Ohio, nine had certificates of operation as of Friday. None planned for central Ohio are open. Harvest Dispensaries in the Clintonville neighborhood has been approved to sell medical marijuana but has not opened.

Insurance companies do not cover medical marijuana, leaving patients to shell out hundreds of dollars for the drug. A little under 3 grams of medical marijuana costs about $50.

Febus, however, sees Grow Ohio as more than just a commercial enterprise.

"You're killing a stigma that's lasted for years upon years that still continues to this day," he said, "but I think folks are starting to wake up and see the natural efficacy of the drug and see that there are ways it can be regulated.”

mhenry@dispatch.com

@megankhenry