It will be more than a year from today before Missouri patients will be able to step into a dispensary and legally buy marijuana as a doctor-certified treatment, said three private-sector sources tied to Amendment 2's development and other medical marijuana issues.

Almost five months after Missouri voters approved legalizing medical marijuana, state officials were not ready to be so specific.

"I’d say it’s too soon for us to predict that," said Lisa Cox, a spokeswoman with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. "We have some of the dates in the constitution we have to get behind. Even the dates that are in these draft rules are merely in the draft rules. Even until those are finalized, it’s really hard to speculate."

The comments came not long after DHSS released four new sections of draft regulations that would govern Missouri's future dispensaries, grow operations and other marijuana businesses.

State officials can still edit the rules, but the voter-approved amendment to the Missouri Constitution orders them to finish up no later than June 4. As currently proposed, the rules include two requirements for marijuana businesses that can't be avoided.

Both would affect the timeline for Missouri marijuana, said Jack Cardetti, a spokesman for the Missouri Medical Cannabis Trade Association, or MoCannTrade. The two requirements make it likely that Missouri dispensaries and other cannabis operations will be fully functioning sometime in late spring of 2020, Cardetti said.

One requirement is "commencement inspection." DHSS's proposed rules state that once marijuana businesses get their state-issued licenses this year, the businesses will still need "final approval" after they pass a state "commencement inspection" in order to operate. (Keep in mind, local zoning rules, food-safety rules and the like will also apply.)

Cox, with DHSS, said Tuesday that details on what a "commencement inspection" will look like are still forthcoming.

The other requirement is the "Facility Agent Identification Card." These state-issued cards will be a must for all owners, officers, managers, contractors and employees at marijuana businesses.

Agent ID cards have to be in place before employees can start working, Cox confirmed Monday. They cost $150, involve a background check and they are valid for three years.

The draft rules say that applications for agent ID cards will be accepted by the state beginning Feb. 15, 2020. That's six weeks after the deadline for the state to award marijuana business licenses: Dec. 31, 2019.

But owners and principal managers whose names are tied to a marijuana business license will be able to have cards issued within 30 days of getting their license, Cox said.

"So that could happen well before the Feb. 15 date," she said Tuesday afternoon.

For employees, Amendment 2 gives the state 14 days on the calendar to turn around agent ID card applications after the Feb. 15 application start date, Cox said.

"Honestly, they should move that up," said Trish Bertrand, a Springfield activist who helped write Amendment 2. She refers to the facility agent ID cards as "the badge" and said the badge is meant as a way to screen potential cannabis industry employees for felonies.

Bertrand said that amendment-writers wanted nonviolent, drug-related felony convictions related to activities that would be legal under Amendment 2 not to count against a person trying to enter Missouri's legal medical marijuana industry.

She said she plans to suggest that the state change the rules and begin taking agent ID card applications in December, not February.

Bertrand said, "My estimate for dispensaries opening will be June of 2020," citing the amount of time it takes to grow marijuana plants. Growing can take anywhere from 7 to 16 weeks, depending on the type of process used.

Cardetti, with industry group MoCannTrade, said, "To be perfectly honest, the trade association does not have heartburn from the Feb. 15 date. We think it's unrealistic that someone could have a facility up and ready for inspection by that date anyway."

Gil Mobley, a physician with ties to Springfield and Seattle, Washington, which has had legal medical marijuana since 1998 and recreational use since 2012, said Tuesday that a certain amount of delay in setting up any legal system for medical marijuana is "inevitable."

He questioned whether late spring of 2020 is feasible for Missouri medical marijuana. For Mobley, potential delays are less about agent IDs or first-day inspections and more about the sheer complexity of the whole project.

Spring 2020 "would be a fast turnaround to get cannabis grown and processed and get it out to the people and get it tested, even if you get adequate testing," Mobley said.

Mobley cautioned that testing marijuana for safety before it's sold to patients is of great concern to him and public-health officials in general — and that setting up standards and protocols for testing operations could be a key source of any delays in getting the program ready.

"It took Washington state years to get up to par on the testing side alone," Mobley said. "They're still trying to figure out what's acceptable and what's not."

He said many pesticides are cheaply available at places like Lowe's and Menard's. They're very effective at killing mites that can devastate a million-dollar marijuana grow operation "overnight," Mobley said, but these pesticides can remain present on cannabis flowers after harvest, becoming a risk for patients.

Missouri's director of medical marijuana, Lyndall Fraker, said in recent public appearances in Springfield and St. Louis that the state would increase the number of licensed testing facilities from Amendment 2's minimum — two testing labs — to an unspecified larger number. Cox, DHSS spokeswoman, said the number of testing lab licenses is still forthcoming.

She said Missouri currently has four staff members working on medical marijuana issues and confirmed Fraker's recent estimates that the program will eventually have about 50 state employees. Cox expects hiring to begin in the next couple of months, with recruitment listings posted online along with other Missouri government jobs.

Mobley, along with Cardetti from the trade association, both praised DHSS for working through a timeline that Cardetti called "very ambitious." Missouri will compare favorably to Arkansas in terms of how fast it gets medical marijuana to the people, Cardetti predicted.

Delays have been commonplace in setting up these programs across the country, said Peter Murphy, a vice president of regulated markets with Delaware-based Calyx Capital, a firm courting marijuana business in the Show-Me State.

Murphy told the News-Leader on Monday that in his view, "whether it's the regulators or the licensees, certainly not all of them will meet the timeline. You're very good if you do."

He noted that in Pennsylvania, which has more than double Missouri's population but a lower cap on the number of dispensaries, officials gave entrepreneurs six months to be operational. Murphy said that more often than not, when licensees in a newly established medical marijuana program run into trouble, regulators "are very helpful."

Mobley, the physician, agreed.

"Our officials in Jeff City have the finger on the pulse," he said. "What they're doing is exactly right. They're following what other (states) have done the hard way."

He added, "please be patient. This may not roll out exactly when (patients) want, but it's worth waiting for. It could go wrong a lot of different ways."

How did we get here?

On Nov. 6, 2018, voters chose Amendment 2 from among three rival ballot initiatives that would openly defy long-established federal law by legalizing marijuana inside the Show-Me State for qualifying medical patients only. The amendment received 65 percent of votes cast, a greater total vote than other initiatives and candidates on the ballot.

That election took place in a national context in which attitudes, and state marijuana laws, are changing. The same night that Missouri voters chose medical marijuana, Michigan voters legalized recreational, often called "adult use," marijuana. Since then, leaders in New York state, New Jersey and Delaware, among others, have all talked about making marijuana legal.

Thirty days later, Missouri's amendment officially took effect, becoming formally known as Article XIV of the state constitution.

But that milestone did not mean patients with cancer or HIV, among a long list of conditions, could start rolling legal joints or applying legal tinctures or growing legal plants.

The state also released a timeline for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to implement medical marijuana, including a system of patient and caregiver ID cards and business licenses for companies that would sell, grow or process cannabis.

That timeline contains a variety of deadlines that offer a partial answer to the question of when medical marijuana actually becomes part of everyday life in Missouri.

A key deadline is Dec. 31. At a time no later than that date, Missouri must hand out approved business licenses. Amendment 2 compels Missouri to allow for at least 192 dispensaries. Of those, 24 will be located in the 7th Congressional district, which includes Springfield and Greene County.

Businesspeople who are hoping to be awarded licenses have told the News-Leader they think Springfield will have between eight to 10 dispensaries.

City Council and Springfield's planning and zoning commission is currently deciding where dispensaries and other businesses can be located within city limits, a process they expect to complete in April.

More on Missouri's journey to medical marijuana:

Missouri posts draft rules for medical marijuana dispensaries, grow facilities and more

Missouri just posted rules for medical marijuana patient cards. Here's the FAQ.

House considers allowing medical marijuana patients to expunge old possession charges

Bolivar police search cancer patient's bags for marijuana in viral video