Kim Rivers has done what some thought was the impossible.
With her role as Trulieve Cannabis Corp. CEO, head of a billion dollar medical marijuana empire and a direct line to President Donald Trump, she’s been described as the “cannabis industry’s Trump whisperer,” in an April 17 article in Forbes Magazine.
Now the U.S. Department of Justice has lifted restrictions on medical marijuana products and reclassified them as a less dangerous drug, lumping them in with ketamine, steroids and Tylenol with codeine as a Schedule III drug instead of its previous Schedule I designation, where LSD and heroin are classified.
“Of all the CEOs running companies in the $30 billion (2025 sales) cannabis industry, Rivers has become the Trump whisperer,” the article said.
“Many other executives have long boasted about their proximity to the president, or their lobbying efforts, but it was Rivers who successfully represented the industry and debated nay-sayers — including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson — in the Oval Office about why it’s time for America to end its war on pot, start regulating it and studying its medical uses.”
Rivers, 48, has been one of the most vocal advocates and titans in the medical marijuana industry, And, she’s no doubt had a direct impact on the federal policy shift.
It’s a major win for Rivers and the medical marijuana industry — all while she’s also attempting to manage the growing concerns over water quality in rural Jefferson County where Trulieve operates a massive indoor grow facility that’s now under investigation by two state agencies.
Trulieve has invested millions toward its efforts to dominate and lead in the medical marijuana industry.
Even in Florida, the company invested $145 million to promote a proposed constitutional amendment for the 2024 ballot to decriminalize the plant for personal use, although the measure fell.
Another $52 million was spent to resurrect the initiative for the 2026 ballot, but the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a leading critic of recreational marijuana, ruled it didn’t secure enough signatures to get on the ballot.
Some say legalization is just a matter of time, now that federal policies are shifting to declassify medical marijuana as a less dangerous drug.
For Trulieve, that may be more motivation to duplicate its operations taking place in Jefferson County.
In the Forbes article, the 80-acre cultivation campus in Monticello is described as the company’s “crown jewel” with 11 buildings spanning one million square feet and its own electrical substation. The largest building comes in at 750,000 square feet and is home to 18 flower rooms, one clone room, and three mother plant rooms.
“You can smell the company’s crown jewel long before you can see it. Using recycled ground water, it produces tens of thousands of pounds of weed a year, with strain names including Garlic Gas, Sin Mint Sorbet, Khalifa Kush (rapper Wiz Khalifa’s strain), Wedding Crasher and Pineapple Upside Down Cake,” the article said.
“We call this facility the ‘Megatron,’ ” Rivers told Forbes, an apparent reference to the gigantic, villainous leader of the Decepticons in the Transformers universe of shows, movies and action figures. “We believe it is the most efficient (cannabis) facility in the United States.”
The article said water is piped in from two giant tanks to each potted plant on an automatic timer.
It also said in place of employees who would need to move each plant every 12 hours from total darkness to LED lighting, a mechanical trolley mechanism shuttles plants from light rooms to dark rooms, also on a timer, taking only seven minutes to swap out hundreds of plants at a time.
The facility may be the first of many as the company, which pulled $1.2 billion in revenue in 2025, looks to bring the same concept to other states.
“This is a testing ground for us,” Rivers said in the article. “As we continue to dial it in, we already have notes in terms of things that we would change in the next iteration of a Megatron.”
But in rural Jefferson County, the operation is under heightened state scrutiny.
The company insists they are in compliance. But, within a week, the Suwannee River Water Management District, notified the company of what it called “apparent violations” and requested a maintenance plan by April 24 to correct them or face unspecified amount of fines.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection also put Trulieve on notice to respond to “possible violations” detected during a recent inspection or run the risk of paying $15,000 per day violation until issues are resolved.
“As it has always done in the past, Trulieve will continue to work diligently and transparently to assist DEP with its review,” said Steve Vancore, president at VancoreJones Communications in Tallahassee and spokesman for Trulieve, in a previously reported statement to the Tallahassee Democrat.
This all comes after concerns about water quality surfaced in the rural county, where the population is roughly 15,000 residents.
By comparison, the Tallahassee-based company has a total of more than 6,000 employees across its vast network of grow sites and more than 230 sites nationwide.
Next week, the Jefferson County Commission is holding a special meeting to discuss the Trulieve facility.
On April 20, the commission fired off a letter to state agencies expressing “serious concern regarding ongoing water and air quality issues associated with the Trulieve Production Facility.”
Commissioners have also notified its local legislative delegation to contact all possible regulatory agencies and entities to investigate the potential impacts from the facility.
“Over an extended period, Jefferson County residents have raised consistent concerns related to the volume and quality of water runoff originating from this facility,” commissioners wrote in the letter.
“Specifically, citizens have reported observations suggesting excessive discharge and have questioned whether such runoff may contain elevated nutrient levels and/or other contaminants that could adversely impact surrounding properties, groundwater resources, and nearby surface waters.”
“In addition to these water-related concerns, the County has received numerous complaints over several years regarding persistent and pungent odors emanating from the facility’s operations,” the letter continues.
“Residents have described these odors as intrusive and disruptive, rising to the level of a public nuisance that negatively affects quality of life in the surrounding community.”
The meeting is set for 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 28 at the Courthouse Annex in Jefferson County. Trulieve is expected to attend and provide the commission with information, according to the Monticello News.
Earlier, the Democrat obtained an internal one-page memorandum dated April 8 from Eric Powers, chief legal officer and Kyle Landrum, chief production officer, to CEO Kim Rivers.
They deny the claims, saying residents’ concerns are not supported by environmental testing data or the facility’s permitting record, adding “the facility is in compliance, its permits are current (and) its water supply is clean.”
Contact Economic Development Reporter TaMaryn Waters at tlwaters@tallahassee.com and follow @TaMarynWaters on X.