BATON ROUGE – A 36,000-square-foot warehouse off Highland Road will soon be home to a legal marijuana grow operation, WBRZ learned Thursday.

The warehouse is on property that was formerly a Pepsi distribution center and will be used to cultivate plants needed for the state's recently-enacted legislation that allows for medicinal marijuana. Officials have estimated, the legal marijuana program could be up and running by the summer.

Plants could occupy the warehouse on Petroleum Drive just south of Ward Creek by this time next month. The area is zoned as industrial, sources with knowledge of the operation told WBRZ reporter Mark Armstrong Thursday morning.

The marijuana is being grown to produce oils.

As of December, a handful of doctors had been approved to write prescriptions for medical marijuana in Louisiana.

Officials believe Louisiana's law will eventually get the drug to people with cancer, a severe form of cerebral palsy, seizure disorders, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy and other diseases.

Growing operations are overseen by the LSU and Southern agricultural centers.

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