A company owned by a pharmacist and a former Baton Rouge area judge has won Louisiana’s coveted 10th medical marijuana pharmacy license, putting it in an exclusive club of businesses allowed to sell the drug legally.
Crescent City Therapeutics, which plans to open a pharmacy at 100 Airline Highway in Kenner, won a competitive bid process at the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy this week. Pharmacist Lovie Rodgers is the majority owner, while Freddie Pitcher Jr., a former state district and appellate court judge, is a minority owner. Pitcher also formerly served as chancellor of Southern University Law Center.
The firm beat out bids by companies owned in part by former Saints player Steve Gleason, Louisiana Democratic Party Chair Katie Bernhardt, Tulane University and several others. The board had whittled down a list of nearly 30 applicants to 14 finalists.
Rodgers, who works as a pharmacist at LCMC Healthcare Partners, said in an interview that she got interested in medical marijuana after realizing her mother, who died from complications of Crohn’s disease at 47, might have benefitted from the drug.
“She had a disease state that would have benefited from this,” she said. “Now that she’s not here, I can't help her, but I can help another child who is taking care of her parent.”
Rodgers called the list of competitors for the 10th pharmacy license “daunting.” Among them was a firm whose owners include the CEO of one of two licensed marijuana growers in Louisiana and Warren Riley, the former superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department. The Pharmacy Board handed out the 10th license after public meetings this week where it heard from applicants.
Crescent City Therapeutics will represent the only new business allowed into the exclusive medical marijuana market in Louisiana since the state began allowing medical use of the drug several years ago. The state has until now only had nine pharmacies, each in a different region of the state, and two growers. The 10th license was slated for the high-population New Orleans region; some of the existing nine pharmacies are also eligible to open satellite locations.
The Legislature has resisted efforts to break up the regional monopolies, even as the drug has become increasingly popular in Louisiana, especially after lawmakers began allowing pharmacies to sell the smokable flower. Until this year, patients could only get certain non-smokable forms. Patients have complained of product shortages and high prices, which some advocates blame on the duopoly of growers and the limited retail locations.
The number of patients active in the medical marijuana program soared this year. In November, there were 20,517 active patients, according to Pharmacy Board data. That was up 100% from November of last year.
Rodgers declined to say when the new pharmacy will open, but it will likely be in 2023.
The current New Orleans marijuana pharmacy, H&W Drug Store, is also opening a second location in Metairie.
