BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana’s agriculture department and a state-sanctioned medical marijuana grower have broken through one of the key impasses keeping therapeutic cannabis out of patients’ hands.

Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain announced Friday that regulatory paperwork and background checks have been finished that will allow Louisiana State University’s grower to move fully into a larger growing facility. Then, the grower can start ramping up production.

Product testing and other regulatory hurdles still remain to be completed before medicinal-grade pot can hit the shelves and reach patients eligible for treatment of chronic conditions.

But the announcement appears to end threats that a dispute over the paperwork would end up in an administrative court hearing. And it could keep LSU’s growing partner GB Sciences on track to have medical marijuana available to patients by summer.