Coalinga legalizes medical marijuana cultivation

Coalinga, California City Council passed a bill allowing the immediate cultivation of medical marijuana within city limits. The company Ocean Grow Extracts has been approved to begin hiring it's 100 local workers, and has already received over 200 applications. The city of Coalinga found itself nearly $3.5 million in debt before it allowed Ocean Grow Extracts to purchase a local grow location, a dormant prison, for $4.1 million, covering the city's debt. The original proposed deal also included Ocean Grow Extracts paying around $2 million in rent/fees for the prison per year. Though some members of the community needed convincing of it's legitimacy, medical marijuana has finally been accepted in Coalinga and the city will likely vote on dispensing and delivering the drug in the future.

The council also approved the sale of the city’s dormant prison, Claremont Custody Center, to Ocean Grown Extracts for $4.1 million. Ocean Grown will transform the prison into a medical cannabis oil extraction manufacturing plant.

“We listened to the citizens and created a package that was reflective of our population.”

Keough believes that the dozens of hours spent educating the community on the medical marijuana industry has changed the small town’s way of thinking.

“You can never do anything that satisfies everyone,” Keough said, “but we were pretty darn close to doing that.”