For decades a small, research facility at an SEC school served as the single source of legally grown marijuana allowed for research purposed.

This SEC grow lab has been in cultivation at the University of Mississippi since 1968.

Move over Ole Miss, there’s a new marijuana sheriff in town, err, the country.

For decades the University of Mississippi in Oxford was the only federally licensed facility allowed to grow marijuana legally in the U.S. for research purposes.

On Friday, Maridose, a Brunswick, Maine, company announced it, too, had received the federal license from the United States Department of Justice to grow marijuana legally for research.

“For decades the University of Mississippi had a monopoly on marijuana grown for research,” Maridose company officials said in a press release. “The license granted to Maridose is a step toward ending that monopoly and expanding access to modern cannabis strains for research on cannabis and cannabis-derived products.”

Maridose is now an alternative to the University of Mississippi and is licensed by the Drug Enforcement Agency to supply cannabis and its extracts for research use in the United States.

“We are very excited to receive this license from the DEA to produce and sell cannabis for research purpose, this a huge step for science and the future of cannabis.”, said Richard Shain Maridose’s Founder, “Our DEA Registration Number RM063095 is the culmination of over five years of working with the DEA and enables Maridose to legally sell a wide variety of cannabis products through the DEA to researchers and DEA-licensed pharmaceutical companies in the United States and internationally.

“The DEA has indicated that it will only issue a very limited number of them, and Maridose is proud to be one of the first companies to receive a license. Cannabis businesses operating in states that have state legal cannabis are unable to ship across state lines and operate at legal risk because cannabis remains a Schedule 1 substance at the federal level. Maridose is able to legally supply our customers without these risks and limitations.”