Medical marijuana patients in Michigan can now get their medicine delivered to their door.

State officials issued the first three home delivery licenses last week to provisioning centers in Detroit and Portage.

“We know a lot of the patients we’re going to be delivering to -- a lot of them are in wheelchairs,” said Jevin Weyenberg, general manager of Lake Effect in Portage. “Convenient access to medicine -- you can never put a price on that. It’s life-saving for some people.”

Lake Effect and two Detroit shops -- BotaniQ and Utopia Gardens -- are the first in the state to be licensed for home delivery by the Marijuana Regulatory Agency. The agency took over control of licensing medical marijuana facilities from an appointed board on April 30 as a result of an executive order from Governor Gretchen Whitmer. In its first week, the agency approved six facility licenses and the three home delivery licenses.

The agency has specific rules for home delivery of medical marijuana. Each provisioning center must hire its own delivery drivers, carefully document its inventory and track the delivery route with a GPS system.

The provisioning centers can only deliver to a patient’s home address, and must obtain a copy of their driver’s license and medical marijuana card before the delivery. The delivery address must match the patient’s addresses on their driver’s license and medical marijuana card.

Patients can only receive the daily maximum limit -- 2.5 ounces of marijuana flower -- during home deliveries.

Provisioning centers can deliver marijuana to patients who live in a municipality where medical marijuana retail sales have been banned or where local officials have not opted in to the program, said David Harns, spokesman for the Marijuana Regulatory Agency.

Lake Effect is preparing to launch its home delivery program, Weyenberg said.

The provisioning center is taking security precautions, by adding a security camera to their delivery vehicle and equipping their delivery driver with a body camera.

"It's the first time it's ever been done in the state of Michigan legally," Weyenberg said. "We want to make sure everything is secure … we want to make sure we're a hard target for any criminal that might try anything."

Once they launch their program, Lake Effect will take orders over the phone and deliver to patients in Kalamazoo County.

On the east side of Detroit near Belle Isle, Utopia Gardens offers home delivery every day of the week. Patients can order online through their website and by calling the shop.

“Patients are getting tested product -- licensed, tested product. The quality’s there, the test results are there,” said owner Stuart Carter. “The patients are getting quality drugs and we’re delivering them in a safe manner.”

Inside Utopia Gardens, a medical marijuana provisioning center, at 6541 E Lafayette St. in Detroit, Sept. 12, 2018. (Tanya Moutzalias | MLive.com)Tanya Moutzalias | MLive.com

Utopia Gardens delivers to patients within a 20-mile radius -- including to Ferndale, Royal Oak, Birmingham and Plymouth. The delivery driver does not accept cash -- but does accept debit card payments.

“We’re doing about two to three delivery batches a day,” Carter said. “If you ordered at 10, we could get it to you by noon.”

While there are websites like Weedmaps that feature home delivery options, most of those transactions are occurring outside of the state’s regulatory control.

Weyenberg and Carter hope their new status as licensed home delivery operators will cut into the black market.

“We want to be able to compete with them. They are taking some of the business via that route because there’s demand for it,” Weyenberg said of Weedmaps. “There’s just a massive amount of demand, and the demand manifests itself in a lot of different ways. Delivery is one of them.”

-- Amy Biolchini is the marijuana beat reporter for MLive. Contact her with questions, tips or comments at abiolch1@mlive.com. Read more from MLive about medical and recreational marijuana.