Michigan urged to extend Sept. 15 deadline for medical pot businesses

Kathleen Gray | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption What you need to know about marijuana in Michigan Local officials are beginning to decide if they want medical marijuana businesses in their communities before the state starts giving out licenses next year.

A group of 10 lawmakers and officials in two cities have taken up the cause of medical marijuana businesses by asking Gov. Rick Snyder to extend a Sept. 15 deadline for the businesses to either get licensed by the state or shut down.

The deadline has already been extended twice by the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs because the process for getting a license to grow, transport, test and sell medical marijuana in the state is taking so long.

Since the state Legislature passed the law regulating and taxing the medical marijuana industry in December 2016, and LARA began accepting applications for licenses in five categories on Dec. 15, 2017, the state Medical Marijuana Licensing Board has accepted 637 applications for licenses, but only approved 16.

More medical marijuana:

Wary Michigan towns slow to accept medical marijuana

What Michigan needs to learn from Colorado's legalized marijuana

Among the applications that have been accepted are about 230 businesses, mostly dispensaries including more than 60 in Detroit, that have been operating with the permission of the communities where they’re located. If they don’t get a license from the state by Sept. 15, they will have to shut down or risk any chance of getting a license in the future.

“We’re on pins and needles here,” said Stuart Carter, owner of the Utopia Gardens dispensary in Detroit. “My employees are really concerned for themselves and their families. There is a lot at risk here.”

The Ann Arbor City Council passed a resolution earlier this month, calling on Snyder to extend the deadline for three months beyond Sept. 15. The city gave approval to several dispensaries last year to continue operating while they were seeking a state license.

“Concern has been expressed to the Mayor that LARA may not be able to process the backlog of applications for state operating licenses by September 15, which could require an existing facility that had not yet been issued a state license to cease to operate,” the resolution said. “Extending the deadline beyond September 15, will ensure that medical marijuana patients will have safe uninterrupted access to their medicine from existing facilities in Ann Arbor.”

Lansing Mayor Andy Schor sent a letter to Snyder last week noting that it will be difficult for LARA to process the applications before the Sept. 15 deadline.

“We want to ensure patients have access to medication until such time as licenses can be issued,” Schor wrote.

On Tuesday, he said, the city is prepared to license up to 25 dispensaries, including some that have been operating for months with the city’s blessing.

“The state is taking a long time and doing their due diligence to approve licenses,” Schor said. “While we’re still trying to navigate the process, it would make sense to back up the deadline because there are people who need medicine while the process plays out.”

The 10 lawmakers from all over the state — nine Democrats and one Republican — sent a letter to Snyder and Shelly Edgerton, director of LARA, asking them to extend the deadline to ensure that medical marijuana cardholders continue to have access to cannabis.

“It is impossible to license enough marijuana facilities including transporters, processors and safety compliance facilities to service Michigan’s approximately 270,000 patients by the Sept. 15 deadline,” read the letter signed by Sen. David Knezek, D-Dearborn Heights, and state Reps. Jewel Jones, D-Inkster; Frank Liberati, D-Allen Park; Robert Wittenberg, D-Oak Park; Patrick Green, D-Warren; Martin Howrylak, R-Troy; Yousef Rabhi, D-Ann Arbor; Adam Zemke, D-Ann Arbor; Tom Cochran, D-Mason and David LaGrand, D-Grand Rapids.

“The processing delays threaten businesses with arbitrary closure, and their customers are once again unsure if they will be able to get the medicines they need,” the letter said. “It is not acceptable to allow a bureaucratic delay to bankrupt law-abiding small businesses.”

Andrew Brisbo, the director of the state’s Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation, said the state was not prepared to change the Sept. 15 deadline without drafting a whole new set of emergency rules, but the department is in the process of drafting a reply to the lawmakers’ request.

David Harns, a spokesman for the BMMR, said the department is expanding the number of people reviewing applications from 14 to 22 and will add another manager to the license review team.

“We’re pushing hard. We want to get people through the pipeline,” he said.

Snyder’s spokeswoman Anna Heaton, said, “We are taking the concerns into consideration and will reassess the deadline as we get closer to that date.”

But in the meantime, Carter said, he’s “hoping and praying” that LARA either extends the deadline or considers his applications for licenses for his dispensary, grow operation and production facility which makes marijuana-infused products.

“Companies like mine who have done everything right, we’ve got a license from the city,” he said. “And now we’re at the mercy of the state’s schedule.”

Kathleen Gray covers the marijuana industry for the Free Press. Contact her at 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress or @michpoligal on Twitter.

Post your marijuana-related questions to the Free Press' marijuana mailbag at pot.michigan@freepress.com