Vancouver-headquartered Tantalus Labs has become B.C.’s 10th Health Canada-licensed medical marijuana producer, aiming to start sales sometime in the summer of 2018 under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes regulations.

In an interview Monday, CEO Dan Sutton said Tantalus received word Friday that it was approved, which allows it to start acquiring materials and planting seed crops, including clone plants, at its high-tech greenhouse facility in Maple Ridge, which has the capacity to grow up to 10,000 kilograms of cannabis per year.

Sutton said they expect to have their first planting in place within the next four weeks, which will start to flower by late summer, allowing the company to start developing a consistent production process between now and when sales start sometime in mid-2018.

“An agricultural crop is not something you can rush,” Sutton said. “You’ve got to let plants do their thing and build processes around (them) that are consistent.”

Tantalus is also looking for new partners to invest upwards of $10 million, although Sutton wouldn’t specify an exact amount because the company is private. However, he said the funds will go toward additional improvements to their Sunlab greenhouse near Maple Ridge and operating funds to carry it through to sales.

Sutton said the medical cannabis business remains attractive on its own, with a market of between 150,000 to 170,000 registered medical users, which is growing by about 10 per cent every quarter.

The prospect of a legal recreational market, however, puts a lot of pressure on the government and licensed producers to ramp up production to legally supply the demands of millions of adult recreational users.