It’s been all over the news how much tragedy and destruction Hurricane Maria brought the nation of Puerto Rico.
The nation’s medical marijuana industry was also greatly affected by the storm and is still struggling to recover. It is estimated that the hurricane cost the island trade millions in damages.
Goodwin Aldarondo, the president and CEO of Puerto Rico Legal Marijuana explained, “Big manufacturing and grow facilities have had their roof blown off, there is water in their manufacturing rooms, equipment damaged, no light for plants and most are dead.”
“You’re talking about millions of dollars of damage and we just started as an industry,” he added.
It was only the end of last December that the nation’s government legalized medical marijuana.
The Puerto Rico Medical Cannabis Association is still trying to asses the cost of the damage for the medical marijuana industry’s insurers.
The president of the association, Ingrid Schmidt commented, “We were expecting a lot from this industry. It’s the only industry that was creating jobs and a lot of hope was put into this industry because it was critical to the financial circumstance that our island is going through.”
So far 20 of the island’s 29 medical marijuana dispensaries have re-opened according to the association.
