The Apothecary Shoppe held a ribbon cutting with the Greater Iberian Chamber of Commerce for the upcoming grand opening of their satellite location in New Iberia.

The new location, located at 1700 Center St. opens Thursday, Sep. 7, and is the second satellite and eleventh total medical marijuana pharmacy in the state. Currently, the company is building a new home for its original Lafayette store on Ambassador Caffrey.

CEO Eric Vidrine said they started planning an expansion into a satellite location over a year ago in an effort to increase access.

Eric Vidrine started his journey in pharmaceuticals in 1994 and he specialized in niche pharmacies providing Hospice and infusions for much of his time. He founded Professional Arts Pharmacy in 1998, the first compound pharmacy in Lafayette, one of the first in the nation to receive accreditation from the Pharmacy Compounding Accreditation Board.

The New Lafayette building will reside in a 2-acre portion of frontage access on Ambassador Caffrey, one of the highest trafficked roads in Lafayette. Eric Vidrine plans to include a drive through and curbside access.

Legally, Louisiana awarded 10 licenses to distributors across the state. To bid for the license, Eric Vidrine partnered with Brian Ruden, CEO of Star Buds dispensaries and one of the first medical marijuana cultivators in Colorado. Eric Vidrine competed with 10 other groups for the Acadiana region license, but his pharmaceutical experience combined with Ruden’s cannabis experience proved enough to earn the license.

Each licensed distributor may open two additional satellite locations, one after reaching 3,500 patients, and a second after 7,000. The business originally launched in Lafayette in 2019 after the state initially legalized medical marijuana and within four years, they exceeded the patients necessary to launch the satellite location, according to Chief Operating Officer Blair Vidrine. Currently, the Apothecary Shoppe services over 10,000 people from their Lafayette location alone.

The satellite locations follow a radius rule to ensure even access to care. Without the distance restrictions, distributors could oversaturate coverage in one area, leaving more rural regions lacking. The Lafayette license requires The Apothecary Shoppe to build its satellites 15 miles beyond their current location. This distance requirement placed New Iberia in an opportune position, according to Eric Vidrine.

“We started looking at the other population centers where our existing patients were driving from and New Iberia just stood out as where we needed to be to increase access, where we could make the biggest impact,” Eric Vidrine said.

When the first location opened, they faced a variety of challenges under Louisiana requirements. According to John Davis, CEO of Good Day Farms,the company that operates the LSU AgCenter marijuana grow facility in Ruston, testing periods lasted 90-200 days, which made deliveries haphazard. Now, smooth and effective testing lets distributors receive consistent shipments on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

“Before, we had to ration products because we didn’t know when the next test cycle was going to be rolling out. Now, we have tests every week, so products are consistently available. When products are being released, we can do a new product every 10 weeks. That’s for the regulatory process, the testing process, and out to the public, which is crazy,” Davis said.

Improving quality of life is the key purpose of medical marijuana, and The Apothecary Shoppe’s first patient, late former Governor Kathleen Blanco, is a testament to this philosophy. Nearing the end of her life, Blanco entered Hospice Care and utilized medical marijuana. After her death, her family praised the effectiveness of the treatment at making her comfortable.

When the state first legalized medical marijuana, law enforcement played a large role in limiting access because they viewed it as a possible gateway to opioid abuse. Support for medical marijuana continues to rise amongst law enforcement, however, as the benefits present themselves. According to a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, states with access to medical marijuana see a “modest” reduction in opioid prescription, which directly leads to a reduction in chronic and high-risk opioid use.

Therefore, keeping supplies stocked is vital to certain positive aspects of medical marijuana. When medical marijuana supplies fall short, patients recovering from opioid addiction or experiencing intense symptoms may expose themselves to opioids or potentially-laced black market marijuana.

Initially, the state limited products to tinctures, which are oils dissolved in alcohol and slow acting. According to Eric Vidrine, limiting available products to tinctures poses a threat to patients with afflictions like seizure disorders that require immediate relief. Options like flower and vapes offer immediate release. Since the introduction of legal flower, demand rapidly grew to 70% of all the Apothecary Shoppe’s sales.

As time progressed, and the benefits of medical marijuana revealed themselves, state laws changed radically to reflect legislators evolving understanding. Now, distributors may sell a variety of products from flowers to edibles and disposable vapes. The Apothecary Shoppe even offers undosed gummies so patients can try different flavors before they buy.

The patient diagnosis process is another aspect of the medical marijuana industry that changed radically since 2019. Currently, any physician can recommend a medical marijuana card for anything they deem debilitating, be it muscle spasms, chronic pain or even insomnia. Previously, the law limited qualifying conditions to life-threatening afflictions like Cancer or Epilepsy Disorder and patients were required to provide information like MRIs.

Simply affording the care was another limiting factor for a lot of potential patients. Now it may be $50 to $100 for the whole year, but according to Eric Vidrine, it previously cost patients thousands of dollars to maintain their medical marijuana card over the course of months.

The state medical marijuana program continues to grow, with medical marijuana distributors across the state expanding steadily and patient access rising exponentially. Eric Vidrine welcomes the growth and is proud to support the industry.

“It’s been very cool to be part of something on the ground floor like the medical marijuana industry. I just saw the impact in other states and I wanted to be a part of it,” Eric Vidrine concluded.