Here’s why medical marijuana in Louisiana still isn’t available

Louisiana's medical marijuana program has experienced a series of delays that now has officials saying product will be available by May at the earliest. The state licensed two different growers, one of which harvested their first crop nearly 4 months ago and the other is finalizing details for their grow facility and hopes to have product ready to be tested by fall. The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF) intended to hire multiple testing labs for the state's program however none of the applicants were qualified. The LDAF chose to test the samples themselves to keep the program moving, however the tests took longer than expected, a 72 day turnaround when the standard time should be 30 work days.