LANSING, MI -- As recreational licenses are being processed, Michigan’s prospective marijuana businesses are becoming eager, if not antsy, to begin growing, processing and selling legal weed to the general public.

As of now, based on the current rules and the length of the marijuana grow cycle once businesses are licensed, there won’t be legal recreational sales until about March or April.

Any existing marijuana or related products are not recognized under the “adult-use” moniker; therefore, the market must start from scratch.

That is, unless there is some sort of reprieve, and Marijuana Regulatory Agency Director Andrew Brisbo hasn’t ruled out alternatives that could allow retailers to open their doors earlier.

One proposal that has been swirling among marijuana business owners who’ve spoken with MLive is the possibility that product currently designated as medical could be transferred over to the recreational side.

“I think we need to continue to monitor what the supply looks like on the medical side to see where that might fit in,” Brisbo said last week. "It’s really not about prohibiting it, it’s about if we open that window, and if so, in what way, so we’re going to continue to analyze how things unfold.

Brisbo has previously stated he doesn’t want to shortchange supply for medical marijuana patients for the sake of appeasing the recreational market.

“I think there’s not adequate supply through the regulated market to meet (medical) demand at this point, but consumer demand also isn’t at capacity,” Brisbo said on Nov. 1, the day the state began accepting recreational business license applications. “ ... The inadequacy seems mostly around flower, specifically.

"Part of it is how much is being produced. We have an imbalance in the number of provisioning centers (dispensaries) versus the number of growers ... "

According to the Marijuana Regulatory Agency’s most recently available quarterly report, as of June 30 there were 120 dispensaries supplied by 78 growers licensed for 1,500 plants each, two licensed for 1,000 plants and nine licensed to grow 100 plants.

“I think ... we’ll see sales in some capacity within the first quarter of next calendar year for sure,” Brisbo said. “Because I expect we’ll have licenses issued, based on the the pace so far, probably by the end of this month, but certainly a good number of them by the end of December.”

Until Dec. 6, 2021, anyone licensed to test, transport, process or grow in excess of 1,000 plants must already be licensed under the 2008 voter-passed medical marijuana laws. The agency said businesses may apply for a medical license and, when and if they are approved, then apply for their recreational business license.

So far, no one has been officially licensed for recreational sales, but companies like Exclusive Brands are ready to ring up sales for more than just medical marijuana-registered patients.

“The rules and regulations are not yet concrete and we were hoping that they would be and we would be able to go full recreational on Jan. 1,” Exclusive Brands co-owner Omar Hishmeh said this week. “However, we heard talks of it being a little later in the year.”

Numerous people have already entered the Exclusive Brands dispensary in Ann Arbor under the assumption that recreational sales were already legal and were turned away when they couldn’t provide a medical registry card, Hishmeh said.

“We’ve actually already started a waiting list," he said, “just to keep in tune with our future recreational patients to let them know exactly when the time comes.”

-- Gus Burns is the marijuana beat reporter for MLive. Contact him with questions, tips or comments at fburns@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter, @GusBurns. Read more from MLive about medical and recreational marijuana.

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Meet Michigan’s first recreational marijuana applicant

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