Pottstown Going to Pot, or Medical Marijuana, Again

After being passed over last year from one of the two medical marijuana permits Pennsylvania issued for the five-county region around Philadelphia, a company that wants to site a facility in Pottstown is trying again.

Jon Cohn, from Agronomed, appeared before Pottstown Borough Council Monday night and said not only is his company still interested in establishing a medical marijuana grow/processing facility in the borough, but they are also interested in establishing hemp-growing site as well.

Hemp is a cousin to cannabis, but does not have any of the psycho-active

Agronomed wants to grow both hemp and 

cannabis in Pottstown.

properties that have made marijuana so controversial. It also does not have any of the medicinal properties.

But, wonder plant that it apparently is, it has many uses, such as conducting electricity, housing insulation and more, said Cohn. "William Penn and George Washington grew hemp," he said.

The U.S. also imports lots of hemp from China, so growing it here would also help the local economy he said.

He didn't have to work too hard to convince council. Councilman Dennis Arms made a motion on the spot to issue a letter of support to allow Cohn to make his May application deadline. It was adopted unanimously.

Also adopted unanimously was a resolution opposing the closure of the YMCA in Pottstown that we have been doing just a bit of reporting on lately.

The other item of relative interest was council's unanimous decision to reject Twila fisher, the director of The Hill School's Hobart's run from the board of directors for the newly established land bank.

They apparently agreed with the concerns raised by former councilwoman Sheryl Miller that Fisher's position encouraging property purchases around The Hill School campus might create a conflict of interest.

They unanimously approved Cheryl Chiarello, who is on the blighted property committee; Andrew Monastra, who is on the Historic Architecture Review Board; Deb Penrod who is on the planning commission and Council Vice President Carol Kulp.

Whomever is chosen instead of Fisher cannot be any kind of borough officials, like the others, according to the by-laws set up in the ordinance creating the land bank.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting: