Next month some medical marijuana patients in Michigan may be caught in the lurch of regulatory chaos.

It's anticipated that many medical marijuana businesses in the state will have to shut their doors Sept. 15, as state officials impose a deadline for businesses to have new licenses issued under the state's program.

"You're running a whole set of very serious risks if you operate after Sept. 15," said Bob Hendricks, a marijuana business lawyer in Grand Rapids. "Risk of prosecution; risk of not getting a license at all ever."

Hefty applications and heavy scrutiny from an appointed board has slowed the launch of the program -- and regulators admit they won't be able to license all of the businesses that have applied by Sept. 15.

State officials said patients will have to be vigilant about knowing where their medicine comes from.

"The whole point of these laws is for safe access for patients to medicine," said Brandon Gardner, lead lawyer for Grand Rapids Cannabis Attorneys. "I think that's really lost in these discussions."

Temporary rules

Medical marijuana was approved by Michigan voters in 2008, but the state attempted to clarify the loosely operating system with new laws in 2016. Those led to two sets of emergency rules.

At first, the Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation required all operating businesses to apply for a license by Feb. 15. A total of 215 did so and have been operating under temporary rules for the past several months. At the time, the state said it would complete its vetting by June 15 and would issue new licenses.

As the day grew closer, there was such a backlog of paperwork that no licenses had been issued. The bureau extended the deadline to Sept. 15 with a signature from the governor.

"It's not a deadline for applicants per se," said Gardner. "It's more of a deadline that the state self-imposed."

Any medical marijuana business that had been operating under the temporary rules must now have a new license approved by the state's Medical Marihuana Licensing Board by Sept. 15 to be operational.

But out of the 215 that have applied, only a fraction will be licensed by Sept. 15.

The Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation's board is not only considering licenses for businesses operating under the emergency rules, it is looking over license applications from new businesses -- almost 600 entities in total have applied so far.

"The problem here lies with the state. The state's got to get going," Gardner said. "The state is the gatekeeper to all of this. The application process is absurd."

Seven licenses issued so far

State officials claim they have upheld their end of the bargain by issuing licenses.

As of Aug. 8, seven licenses have been issued by the state's board -- and none to testing facilities. The Aug. 9 meeting of the board has 10 facilities up for license consideration, with one more board meeting scheduled before Sept. 15.

"We fully expect that several provisioning centers will be open throughout the state by Sept. 15, with the ability to sell fully-regulated, safety-tested products to the state's medical marihuana card holders," said David Harns, spokesman for the BMMR, in a statement. "The Temporary Operation initiative was not designed to act as a conditional license for businesses that were looking to move into the new, regulated market. It was intended as a short-term solution with the goal of maintaining patient access while we moved applicants through the licensing process - and that objective has been met."

Harns said the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs would be posting a list of licensed facilities on its website for patients to check.

"They can't just leave the patients with no solutions," said Jamie Cooper, 36, of Grand Haven. "I really hope that the state gets their act together and starts issuing these licenses, so that come Sept. 15 we have an operating system. And if they don't, then they need to extend it."

Cooper is a medical marijuana patient, and considers herself a marijuana advocate. She is hoping to treat her five-year-old son, Kylen, with a marijuana extract for his moderate autism.

"If we don't pay our taxes we get penalized by the state. But when the state doesn't do their job, they're not penalized," Cooper said. "I think the state will definitely be dealing with some lawsuits at some point because of how things have been conducted."

Licenses not a guarantee of a functioning industry

But even with a new license, dispensaries may not have any product to sell.

That's because the new medical marijuana program has strict seed-to-sale tracking. Once a dispensary pays for a new state license, any product they put on their shelf must be grown, processed, tested and transported by businesses that also have new license and are abiding by the state's new rules.

Business owners aren't confident there will be enough supply in the new industry at first to make operating right away financially feasible.

Rocky Thomas, owner of State Line Wellness Center in Morenci, said doesn't think he'll have any product to sell come Sept. 15 if he receives his license in time. The license for State Line has been tabled by the board.

"There will be no product for me to legally access, therefore I will just have to shut the door," Thomas said. "It's the cart before the horse."

Thomas said State Line serves 3,800 patients -- three-quarters of which are older than 50.

"They're fighting glaucoma, they're fighting opiate addictions," Thomas said. "They are cancer victims fighting without chemo -- and they're actually winning."

The state's slow launch of the medical marijuana industry in Michigan is now playing out alongside a campaign to legalize recreational marijuana use in the state. Voters will decide that issue at the polls Nov. 6.

-- Amy Biolchini is the marijuana beat reporter for MLive. Contact her with questions, tips or comments at abiolch1@mlive.com.