SAGINAW TWP. -- An equipment malfunction has led to a backlog in printing about 20,000 medical marijuana cards, a state official said today.

marijuana cards, a state official said today.

The backlog stretches to applications received in July, said Celeste Clarkson, a state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs compliance section manager.

The state has continued to print up to 800 cards a day for medical marijuana patients and caregivers, but the volume of applications has approaches 1,500 a day. Once an application has been approved, the state has five days to print a card under state rules.

The state is reviewing how best to catch up on the backlog, she said.

Clarkson spoke to an audience today at the Horizons Conference Center, 6200 State, about the breakdown at a seminar on medical marijuana enforcement.

Attorney General Bill Schuette's office organized the morning-long session to educated local law enforcement and elected leaders on the law. Sixty-three percent of Michigan voters endorsed medicinal marijuana use in a 2008 referendum, but local law enforcement officials have struggled to define the restraints of the law.

The state has received nearly 200,000 medical marijuana applications through the end of October with 120,597active patients, according to state figures.

The state has 45,531 active caregiver registry card users. A caregiver must have one card for each patient and may have no more than five patients. A caregiver can provide no more than 12 marijuana plants for each patients.

The state has denied 14,288 applications, she said. Those denied may reapply.

Law enforcement may only obtain the names of people listed in the medical marijuana registry through a court order, Clarkson said. The act also does not permit marijuana compassion clubs, dispensaries or collectives, state officials said.

The plants must be kept in an enclosed and locked facility, said Ken Stecker, of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan.

Stecker said the Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of police agency or prosecutors in several disputed cases involving medical marijuana enforcement.