Minnesota-based cannabis company Minnesota Medical Solutions (MinnMed) just announced the development of what it says is a revolutionary new strain of medicinal marijuana.

“This is likely the most CBD-rich strain in the world,” MinnMed CEO Kyle Kingsley told reporters. “Though it’s difficult to know for sure because testing is not as rigorous and transparent as it should be.”

The company has named its new strain “Katelyn Faith” in honor of an 8-year-old girl who suffered from Battens Disease, a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disorder.

The two main chemicals that give marijuana its unique characteristics are cannabidiol (CBD)—which is responsible for most of the plant’s medicinal properties and helps treat seizures and other conditions—and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—which is its primary psychoactive component.

Typically, most cannabis plants produce much less CBD than THC, and strains that have been designed for medical use average somewhere around a 1-to-1 ratio.

But not in Katelyn Faith.

MinnMed reports that the new strain has somewhere around a 34-to-1 ratio of CBD to THC.

This extremely high level of CBD could make the strain particularly effective for a number of medicinal applications.

In particular, MinnMed thinks the new strain could provide a way to produce cost-effective medicine that would be significantly cheaper for medical marijuana patients than current prices.

According to The Washington Times, Kingsley said that Katelyn Faith’s high CBD levels “will reduce costs by requiring fewer plants to extract the same amount of medicine.”

“He says the new strain has been verified by an independent lab.”

The successful development of Katelyn Faith will be especially relevant and encouraging to Minnesota locals, who have been dealing with significant increases this year in medical marijuana prices.

These price increases became so severe, in fact, that earlier this fall Think Progress reported that “Minnesota’s medical marijuana program is struggling to retain patients burdened by the high costs of government-issued cannabis.”

“Nearly one-fifth of the more than 490 residents enrolled in the program haven’t refilled their prescriptions in more than a month. Some have even returned to buying pot on the black market.”

This news will likely be encouraging to patients beyond the Minnesota market as well, as it represents a potentially groundbreaking new development in the world of medical cannabis.

(Photo Credit: startribune.com)