Jeremy Cox

jcox6@dmg.gannett.com

Outside, weeds have invaded the long, winding cracks in the asphalt parking lot.

Inside, fluorescent bulbs throw splashes of light onto a concrete floor that's bare but for the occasional splotch of some dark, unknown chemical.

Here, Jeff Siskind has little trouble looking beyond the building's past as a modest manufacturing facility. The lighting may be dim, but the future, as he sees it, is bright.

The attorney, who has an office in Florida and deep roots in Baltimore, is at the forefront of a new industry to Maryland and the Lower Shore: medical marijuana. By as early as the dawn of the next calendar year, the 47,500-square-foot warehouse could have its first shipment of medical-grade cannabis ready for dispensing.

"We want the county to be proud to host a cannabis-making facility," Siskind said.

He certainly is. That much was apparent as he and an associate led an impromptu tour of the Hebron plant on Thursday morning.

At present, CannaMed Pharmaceuticals LLC is little more than a leap of faith. The startup amassed enough investment capital to buy the former Matech plant earlier this spring for nearly $1 million, and it plans to pour another $8 million in renovations to make it ready for growing marijuana indoors.

Siskind and his partners are making an expensive bet that the state's medical marijuana commission will give them a license to grow and process the plants. By law, the commission can select only up to 15 firms from the pool of nearly 150 that submitted applications last fall; a decision is expected by late July.

Siskind wants to be one of the first to hit the market in the state. An upstairs space at the Hebron facility is being prepared as a "fast start" grow room, where workers can start raising plants within three days of the commission's approval and be ready to distribute about 200 pounds of product in about four months, he said.

At full throttle, he envisions 50 people working at the plant and clearing $18.5 million a year after expenses.

"There are enough profits in this business we don't have to be too interested in them," Siskind said.

CannaMed should be able to set aside about 5 percent of its annual profits, or about $1 million, into research, he said. To house researchers, he has several offices available totaling 6,000 square feet of room just a flight of stairs away from the main grow room.

The goal is to add more academic heft to the scientific literature on medical marijuana, which is prescribed, where legal, to treat conditions such as nausea, chronic pain and glaucoma. But it is still treated on the federal level as an illegal drug on par with heroin, LSD and ecstasy.

READ: Details of CannaMed's real-estate deal in Wicomico County.

Siskind traces his own interest in the drug's medical uses to his father's deteriorating health. Bill Siskind owned an engineering firm responsible for helping build hospitals, hotels and office buildings around Maryland. But the polio he contracted in his younger days has led to severe nerve pain for which there has been little relief.

Medical marijuana may be the answer for him and other people with chronic conditions, Siskind said. He has consulted with two medical marijuana companies during their formative stages in California

The facility lies amid a mix of forests and farm fields on the east side of Route 50, a few hundred yards north of the Springhill Memory Gardens cemetery. Representatives of the cemetery and other neighboring establishments declined to comment on the possible new plant.

But Ronald Ayers, a town commissioner in Hebron, said he looks forward to the creation of new jobs in the area.

"I'm looking at it as a positive thing," he said, adding that the commission hasn't formally weighed in on it, in part, because the facility lies outside the town limits.

The plant would reside inside Del. Sheree Sample-Hughes' district.

The Wicomico County Democrat said she toured a Colorado growing and processing facility last year with other public officials attending a women's conference at the time. The trip demonstrated that the drug can be grown without an effect on crime in the surrounding area, she said.

CannaMed's facility, she added, "should be conducive to what their needs are and appears secure."

Security will be a top concern, Siskind said. Workers will remove three garage doors from the building before it opens, to get rid of an enticing entryway to would-be thieves. The property also employs a chief security officer.

Getting off the ground hasn't been easy. The state commission was inundated with more applications than it expected, baking a months-long delay into its decision-making process. For CannaMed and others, that has translated into more expenses, mostly from paying staff at a time when no cash is coming in.

Siskind's firm isn't the only grower candidate on the Lower Shore.

A firm called Wellness Farms plans to house its grow operations in an enclosed 20,000-square-foot facility at 9260 Old Princess Anne Road near Westover. Another, Positive Energy, has similar intentions in Snow Hill. Several more have applied to open dispensaries in the area.

The fledgling industry's backers in Maryland have encouraged just the kind of risks that CannaMed is taking.

“Based on published news reports, it appears many applicants have already begun preparing for the final stage of the licensing process,” said Dr. Paul Davies, chairman of the state commission. “This proactive approach on the part of applicants certainly will help expedite the program’s rollout schedule so that Maryland patients can begin receiving medicine at the earliest possible date.”

Contact reporter Jeremy Cox at 410-845-4630 or on Twitter @Jeremy_Cox.

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