It’s Baton Rouge: Out to Lunch

Hosted ByStephanie Riegel

OUT TO LUNCH finds host Stephanie Riegel combining her hard news journalist skills and food writing background: conducting business over lunch. Baton Rouge has long had a storied history of politics being conducted over meals, now the Capital Region has an equivalent culinary home for business: Mansurs On The Boulevard. Each week Stephanie holds court over lunch at Mansurs and invites members of the Baton Rouge business community to join her. You can also hear the show on WRKF 89.3FM.

Medical Marijuana – Out to Lunch – It’s Baton Rouge

In 2015, Louisiana lawmakers joined their counterparts in a growing number of states to legalize medical marijuana for a long list of diseases and disorders, including cancer, cerebral palsy, seizure disorders, epilepsy and muscular dystrophy. Today, therapeutic cannabis is opening up all sorts of new and promising business opportunities for physicians, pharmacies that can dispense marijuana, and companies that can grow it.

Dr Victor Chou

Dr. Victor Chou founded Louisiana’s first Medical Marijuana Clinic  here in Baton Rouge. The clinic has been opened since March 2018. Victor has performed hundreds of consultations and has a waiting list of hundreds more. He is one of just eight doctors, so far, to obtain a Therapeutic Marijuana Registration from the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, and is one of the first doctors to obtain a Schedule 1 CDS license from the state Board of Pharmacy. 

Randy Mire, Stephanie Riegel

Randy Mire is a veteran pharmacist and owner of the local independent pharmacy Gem Drugs, who earlier this year became the sole licensed pharmacist to dispense medical marijuana through his company Capitol Wellness Solutions. Randy’s partners in the startup venture are Baton Rouge pharmacist, TJ Woodard, and Baton Rouge’s former police chief, Carl D’Abadie. Capitol Wellness is on Picardy Ave, right in the heart of the Baton Rouge Health District. 

Stephanie Riegel

Photos at Mansurs on the Boulevard by Karry Hosford.