The cannabis industry in Utah spent over 100 years underground, and unsurprisingly Park City’s own history is riddled with the illegal use and sale of marijuana products. Banned in Utah in 1915, overwhelming public support brought full-THC cannabis back to the state’s legal sphere as medicine in 2018 with the passing of the Utah Medical Cannabis Act.

Since, the state has seen a whirlwind of activity, from new laws to new business to new medical advancements as the cannabis industry wrestles for space to innovate and create in a state that still sees it as a dangerous illicit drug. 

This is the first part in a series that explores the processes of creating cannabis medicines in Utah, from cultivation and production in highly-regulated facilities and research and development for new applications of the drug, to the process for patients of considering the alternative option, finding a doctor, getting a card and shopping at state-licensed pharmacies.

The cannabis plant is considered one of the oldest plants on the planet and most genetically diverse, with thousands of varieties. Highly adaptable, it has evolved as various landrace strains in vastly different climates, as high as the Himalayas and as dry as Afghanistan. 

It’s also known for a variety of components. Cannabis is the same plant that produces hemp, one of the strongest fibers on Earth used for generations to make items like ropes and clothes, primarily found in its stalks. Cannabis also produces two biomolecules, THC and CBD, created by glands on the plant called trichomes. These are tiny, hair-like structures found mostly on a flowering plant, which is where cannabinoids, terpenes and flavonoids are found.

These compounds are where the primary health benefits of the plant begin. Cannabinoids are compounds with the ability to interact with the human central nervous system and immune system, specifically with receptors in the endocannabinoid system responsible for regulating human health and homeostasis — like mood, appetite and pain. This is because THC and CBD have molecular structures almost identical to AG1 and anandamide, naturally produced molecules in the human body.

THC is the only cannabinoid that has noticeable psychoactive effects, and so its presence is used to differentiate between categories of cannabis.

With so much genetic variety developed over centuries of adaptation, different strains or cultivars of the cannabis plant have different properties, a lot of which is due to the naturally developing terpenes. 

Terpenes are aroma molecules that exist in every plant. The citrus smell of oranges or lemons? That’s the terpene known as “limonene.” The smell of lavender is rooted in the terpene “linalool,” said Narith Panh, the chief growth officer for Dragonfly Wellness, one of the cannabis operators in Utah. And each terpene has a particular effect, whether more relaxing or more energizing, just like essential oils. 

“If you’ve ever used cannabis and something makes you sleepy, something makes you energetic, well, there’s a difference in terpenes,” Panh said. “Terpenes have a very therapeutic effect and impact on your body, and people buy cultivars based on that.”

Utah’s cannabis market is a closed system, meaning everything sold in Utah must be grown, produced and tested in Utah if it’s being sold in what they call pharmacies, not dispensaries, to patients, not customers. 

There are eight cultivation licenses in the state to legally grow THC cannabis, 17 licenses to process it and 15 pharmacies where it can be sold. There are a mix of local operators, the mom-and-pop stores, as well as multi-state operators that navigate differing state laws to produce and sell cannabis products.

Dragonfly Wellness is one of the eight cultivators, and they’re also a vertically integrated company, meaning they operate over all three spheres, from growing to processing to retail. 

The Henderson brothers are the brains of the operation at Dragonfly’s cultivation facility in Moroni, at the halfway point between Salt Lake City and Moab. For them, it’s a lifestyle rather than a job.

But pretty much any farming is a lifestyle, said Cody Henderson, director of cultivation. And he would know: Outside of his day-job, Cody also owns and operates a small organic farm with his wife, who started their local farmers market.

“We’re 365 days a year, seven days a week. I always like to say the plants sleep — they literally go to sleep at night — but they don’t take vacations, and so we really can’t much either,” Cody said.

He joined the Dragonfly team after working in the cannabis industry, primarily in construction, throughout California, including San Francisco where the medical cannabis movement started to support patients during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The state legalized access in 1996 under the Compassionate Use Act.

“There was this gray area where you could grow, but there wasn’t licensing. And so since I had those skills, I was building clandestine grow rooms for people, essentially. It was hard to say whether I was breaking the law or not,” he said with a laugh. “I was just the right age at the right time, with the right skill sets to kind of follow that path.”

Building out cultivation facilities means understanding the right temperatures, humidity, feeding processes and light levels that will encourage the most healthy, high-producing plant in the shortest amount of time. 

They’re literally playing God, mimicking natural signals for the plants like length and color of sunlight, amount of nutrients and even natural selection.

“We’re asking these plants essentially to be like super athletes, to produce at this high level. And they’re almost red-lining. We’re pushing them to the point where a little bit more, little more light, little more food, they’re dead,” Cody said. “You have to know what you’re looking at, know the signs of stress, or know the signs of a lack of nutrients or whatever deficiency, to get the most out.”

That’s where Micah Henderson comes in, the head grower who’s also spent the last decade learning the ins and outs of cannabis cultivation from experts in California.

“What Micah is doing, and what he’s really good at, is manipulating the growth cycles and the overall calendar of the facility,” Cody said. “The whole thing has to work like an old grandfather clock with all these gears.”

The cultivation facility is set up with a series of rooms where plants are transferred in time for their next stage of development, from cloning to vegetation to flowering. The main difference between the rooms is the right combination of light length and type, as well as humidity and temperature.

Growing from clones, or cuttings, of a mother plant allows them to keep the exact genetic strain, one of the ways they maintain consistency for their patients.

The smaller plants and mother plants start out in jungle-like conditions with high heat and high humidity, then gradually move to less-humid rooms where under 12 hours of exposure to light can trigger the plant’s flowering cycle.

Keeping a tight schedule allows Dragonfly to stay competitive in a market with larger multi-state operators, whose deep pockets buy added flexibility and, literally, more space, said Micah. 

His training allows him to see the exact stage of growth for each plant and time their transfers within a day or two of their next development. It’s no easy feat, especially with how many different cultivars they produce.

Cody said because of how varied cannabis plants can be in their effect on each individual’s needs, they’re always looking to introduce new flavors.

“I kind of think of a pharmacy, at least from a flower perspective, as an ice cream shop. You want your staples, your chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, so you can come back and buy the same cultivars you might have been buying for a long time, but you want to try new flavors and see if they work for you and your endocannabinoid system,” he said.

Utah has 18 qualifying conditions, types of diagnoses in patients cleared for cannabis use, which means there’s a wide range of treatments people are looking for, said Panh.

But getting new cultivars is not as simple as just going to the store and buying some new seeds.

“Genetics are very convoluted, cross bred, hybridized, passed around. I mean, you’re talking about an industry that was underground for 30 years, and so nothing was done in any sort of systemic way,” said Cody. “Then it popped out of the woodwork overnight, essentially. We’re just coming out of the chaotic birth of the industry.”

Micah added: “There’s a ton of different people’s versions. A popular variety is Wedding Cake, but you never know what cut of Wedding Cake that is. … So you’re always having to hunt through a bunch of different varieties.” 

They do a dragnet approach — bring on a large number of genetics and expect about 20-30% will make it to retail.

Dragonfly currently grows 23 cultivars and just on-boarded 27 new ones to test. They’re looking for commercially viable, meaning a high-enough yield, as well as marketability — a unique terpene profile that will smell good, taste good and look good, said Cody.

But wait, did he say Wedding Cake? Yes, that’s actually the name of a particular strain of cannabis. Most of the names are like this, the brothers said, a quirk of the industry that’s been passed down through its colorful past.

Names like Girl Scout Cookies, Gorilla Glue, Jahmba Juice, Blackberry Spice and even Purple Panty Dropper frequent the cannabis industry, either indicative of their flavor profile and smell, or a combination of the parent plants, or inside jokes lost in their history, said Micah. While some people argue there should be more scientific names for these strains, it’s a lot easier to remember these names, Panh said. Plus, it’s just plain fun.

At Dragonfly’s facility, the No. 1 rule is no pesticides.

“We do not ever use herbicides and pesticides, not even organic listed ones,” Cody said. “If you have a pesticide on here, you concentrate that down into distillate — which is the product for tinctures and edibles and things like that — you’re concentrating the pesticide or herbicide as well.”

So they’ve found alternatives, like ladybugs, one of their organic pest solutions, said Micah. They introduce 3,000 ladybugs to their growing rooms every week.

“You can spray for pests, or you can introduce healthy, beneficial insects. Ladybugs are actually a very affordable way to have integrated pest management,” he said. “Every pest has multiple beneficial insects that will eat it for you, and so we embrace that here.”

They also use botanical grade essential oils and elemental sulfur to ward off pests and molds, and regularly use ozone treatments to kill any mold spores that may breed in the humid environments, said Micah.

Aside from pest management, Micah’s team is also monitoring the plants for any pathogens or viruses that may infect them. Their biggest viral issue with cannabis is the hop latent viroid. 

This is where the growing technology in the industry has been literally lifesaving. If one of their mother plants contracts the virus, Micah said they’re now able to send infected clones to labs where they can cut it down to a cellular level, beyond where the virus is present, then regrow the same plant from uninfected cells to keep the same genetic integrity.

“That’s been a huge revitalization for the industry because we were losing lots of heirloom genetics, essentially to hop latent and other viruses,” he said. “That’s been a huge part of the industry’s boom of now having more genetics available again.”

Maintaining these organic practices is one way they ensure no harm can come to their patients, said Panh. For example, a lot of cannabis patients may have autoimmune diseases, and even a tiny amount of pesticides in their bodies can do a lot of harm. 

In Utah, pesticides are not banned from medical cannabis cultivation. 

“Those are the types of regulations that we’d love for the state to impose, because then everybody would level up their quality,” Panh said. “(Instead) we spend the extra money, and sometimes that’s not known to the patient, like, ‘Oh, why is this more expensive?’”

This is also the case in their decision to maintain other eco-friendly practices in an industry with a huge carbon footprint, said Cody, like compostable soil made from coconut husks and shells, and even water-cooled LED lights.

“If we could do everything organic, we would. It’s just not cost effective for the patient,” he said. “For instance, if we were going fully organic indoors, an eighth, which is the typical size jar that a patient would buy, that’s about 50 bucks average, would be $80.”

Where they can, they eat the cost to keep their processes greener and cleaner, which fits their values as a company and the state’s values for their medical-grade products.

Everything at the Dragonfly cultivation facility leads up to the cannabis flowers, which don’t look like flowers at all.

Instead, these plants put their energy into clusters of hairy, spiky, sticky-looking clusters dusted in what looks like yellow pollen. This is where the smell comes in, all the terpenes of the plant expressing their unique selves: citrus, grape jelly, carrot juice, passion fruit, mango, garlic, onion or even chocolate, and sometimes but hardly skunky, as is often assumed.

Micah and his team take the stalks with flowers and hang them to dry in a dark, cool room. During this process, he’s threading the needle between too dry, so they lose terpenes and crumble apart, versus too wet, allowing mold to grow. Patience is key, and when properly dried, cannabis flower can be stored in the right temperature-controlled space for up to a year, said Cody.

When Micah gives the OK, employees hand-trim the buds that will be sold as flower, and even the trim is used for disilate for oils and vapes.

That’s one happy harvest down, but their carefully calibrated wheel just keeps turning, keeping up with the demand of 100,000 patients across the state.

“I’ve been doing this for 20-plus years,” Cody said. “He’s been doing it for 10-plus years. And I don’t think either of us ever dread going to work or get too stuck in a rut or anything. I think it’s the plant, because it’s always changing. It’s a different cycle. We’re always bringing new plants in new varieties, and it keeps it fresh all the time.”