Oxford businessman Tony Barragan is among the first to receive a license to start a medical cannabis business in Lafayette County.
Barragan, owner and founder of HempVille CBD, has created Hybrid Relief North Mississippi. The entrepreneur was officially licensed to operate a medical cannabis dispensary by the Mississippi Department of Revenue (DOR).
Hybrid Relief will be located in what is currently called Joysticks at 1801 Jackson Avenue W, Suite D 112, just behind HempVille CBD. Hybrid Relief’s grow facility is located in the Panola Airport Industrial Park on HWY 35N.
Barragan told The Eagle that he had been preparing for his license long before applications opened to the public. During the months of June and July, he overcame the obstacles that the DOR and the city of Oxford put in front of him and other entrepreneurs and all the doubts that arose.
“I wasn’t as excited as I thought I would be because I remember there were days when I was driving down the interstate and I was so overwhelmed and full of anxiety,” Barragan said. “… You have all these thoughts every day and you’re just waiting for the clock to strike the day you put in your application. You put it in, and then there’s an anxiety that I’m going to put it in first.
“I asked myself, ‘Did I put him first? Are they watching mine? Will they reject it? So honestly, it was a huge sigh of relief when I heard the agent was coming out and it pretty much solidified everything for me.”
Since the days of Initiative 65, a citizen-backed vote that all but secured medical cannabis for Mississippi in 2020, Barragan has been a staunch advocate of CBD and medical cannabis and its healing properties.
The only difference between the CBD currently sold in local stores and medical cannabis is the THC content, Barragan said. THC is the substance that is primarily responsible for marijuana‘s psychoactive effects on a person’s mental state.
CBD can be extracted from cannabis and has no THC content, which made its use legal in Mississippi before medical cannabis legislation.
With Mississippi’s medical cannabis legislation in place, it is legal for medical cannabis or products containing it to contain THC, but only below 0.3%, which provides none of the psychoactive effects typically associated with marijuana .
Medical cannabis will be used to treat patients with serious medical conditions such as cancer, AIDS and sickle cell disease. Patients with terminal or debilitating illnesses or medical conditions that produce cachexia, chronic pain, seizures, severe or intractable nausea, or severe and persistent muscle spasms are also eligible for the program.
For a complete list of eligibility requirements, visit the Mississippi Department of Health’s medical cannabis page at msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/30,0,425.html.
According to Barragan, he has spoken with HempVille customers about the new law and how it will benefit Mississippi residents with serious medical conditions. Qualifying patients will need to apply for the use of medical cannabis and receive a card certifying that they can use it.
“We have regulars and we’ve talked to them all the time,” he said. “It’s just a matter of qualifying for the card. You must fall into this category to be eligible for a card. If not, we’ll see them in Hemphill forever, which isn’t a problem for me. But we talked to a lot of people about the transition and things like that and a lot of them are very, very excited.”
Potentially qualified users expressed concern to Barragan about the limited number of doctors who could certify their use of medical cannabis.
There aren’t as many doctors to choose from as we thought,” he said. “I’m sure that [number] it will continue to grow as we go forward, but there aren’t many doctors to choose from to go and get a medical card, so we’re a bit concerned about the number of patients.”
Despite the concerns, Barragan is moving forward to prepare for the official launch of his business. Barragan is currently training new employees at HempVille to work in the store as he transitions his current CBD employees to work at Hybrid Relief.
“I’m hoping to get some good candidates out of college,” Barragan said. “I don’t know if they will allow pharmacy people like this to do work like this, but I would like some students who are in pharmacy to come and work in the dispensary with me if they allow it.”
Hybrid Relief will have cannabis crops planted in October 2022, once two large grow rooms are built at the grow facility. The construction of the rest of the cultivation facilities will take one year.
In July, Barragan told The Eagle that the product wouldn’t be ready until early next year. However, it provided a new potential timeline for medical cannabis in Lafayette County.
“I really believe with all my heart and soul that our dispensaries will be open and selling product sometime in December because there are people who are already growing and going wholesale,” Barragan said. “Just because our product isn’t ready doesn’t mean we won’t open our dispensary. There are a lot of people growing to sell in dispensaries and I’m happy to have those partnerships and connections. Even if it’s not my product, my dispensary will be open in December.”
Barragan said medical cannabis-infused flour will be the first thing consumers see on shelves.
While Mississippi’s Initiative 65 and medical cannabis received pushback from state lawmakers and conservative bodies, Barragan said recreational cannabis is in the state’s near future.
“I think there are still obstacles,” Barragan said. “There will be a while, I really think we will see leisure [cannabis] in 2023-2024. I really do.”
