Michigan Regulators award first Medical Marijuana licenses

Posted by Sagar Satapathy on July 14, 2018.

The Michigan regulators on Thursday approved the first medical marijuana operating licenses under a new regulatory regime. According to the Alma Morning Sun, the regulators granted the licenses for four large grow operations.

The CannArbor provisioning center in Ann Arbor, Arbor Kitchen edibles maker in Ann Arbor, VB Chesaning cultivator in Chesaning (four grow licenses) and Capitol Transport in Lansing are operations which were awarded the first medical marijuana licenses. The applicants were approved, mostly on 4-1 votes.

Each license holder is permitted to grow up to 1,500 plants. However, the business owners won’t be able to operate for at least for the next one month. This apart, they have not been issued any testing facility licenses, as a result they can’t test or sell the actual marijuana and the products produced from the weed as of now. “We’re excited that we’ve actually approved the first license, so we can move forward,” said Andrew Brisbo, director of the state’s Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation.

“We continue to work with the few (testing labs) who are close in the process to try and get them licensed as well. We’re aware of the fact that not having a licensed lab presents a challenge for the other types of facilities so we’ll work with them closely on how to proceed,” he added.

“I think we’ll have a few up at the August meeting for consideration by the board.” The board also gave preliminary approval to 16 businesses, which will have to get approval from their local communities before they are awarded a final license.

But the board denied the preliminary approval to five applicants. The approvals of the medical marijuana licenses considered to be a milestone as the move is expected to create a $700-million industry in the state. The board has considered applications for 54 licenses out of 594 applications for medical marijuana it has received so far.

As many as 40 of those have been given preliminary approval and 14 have been denied. The licensing board meets again on August 9. The new regulatory structure is designed to provide legal clarity to a chaotic market that arose after voters authorized MMJ use in 2008.

comments powered by Disqus