Utah is allowing only 10 cannabis farms. Will that be enough to supply the state’s new medical marijuana program?

If the cannabis industry perfectly complied with Utah’s expectations, it would grow 84,292.98 plants annually.

These perfectly obedient plants would offer 10.4 million grams of THC (marijuana’s psychoactive compound), enough to supply exactly 100,000 patients with 2 grams of cannabinoids per week for the entire year.

The supply would meet the demand, and no cannabis buds would be left over to sit in storehouses, at risk of falling into the black market’s clutches.

That, at least, is how it is supposed to work on paper. The state has calculated size limits for the cannabis-growing operations that will undergird Utah’s new medical marijuana program.

The medical cannabis law passed by legislators late last yearcodifies these caps — only 10 growers will be allowed at first, and each of them can cultivate no more than four acres outdoors or 100,000 square feet indoors.

But Justin Arriola, a cannabis business consultant and advocate, believes these firm constraints could set the state up for product shortages, potentially hampering patient choice when Utah’s medical marijuana pharmacies open. [Read more at The Salt Lake Tribune]