Considering beginning a Medical Marihuana Grow so that you can give marijuana to the medical marihuana market? Are you a Medical Marihuana Act licensed caregiver that wants to take your product commercial on a bigger scale? Thanks to the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act, now you can do so legally, as long as you can successfully obtain a license from the State to do so. This can be a fantastic opportunity with lots of new owners seeing tremendous levels of revenue and success in the market. Nevertheless, if you make this decision, you do need to make sure that you obtain a Michigan commercial grow license. Failing to do so will certainly cause your endeavor being, more than likely, illegal and also result in court action that will paralyze your business before it begins.

Unfortunately, the Michigan commercial grow license application is a long, complex and expensive process. Ask a medical marijuana attorney, and they will tell you that you need to ensure that you are prepared. Let’s consider the actions you will need to take, the team you need to build and also the position that you could find yourself in.

Who Can Apply?

The first inquiry to ask yourself is whether or not you are eligible to apply for a Medical Marihuana Facilities license. Fortunately is that anybody, an individual or a full business can apply for a license. Applications began in 2017, and also there is presently no target date to complete the necessary forms. Naturally, there are certain individuals, that, due to the fact that they can not meet the minimal financial needs, or because they have a disqualifying criminal conviction in their history, are prevented from applying. Nevertheless, thinking you do not have a disqualifying criminal conviction, as well as you, or your group of financiers, fulfill the minimal monetary demands, there are 2 main steps to the MMFLA licensing application process. The first step will be finished whether you have a final location for your structure or not. However, if you have already chosen a place before submitting your State application, something that we highly recommend, you can finish both actions at the same time.

Pre-Qualification

Pre-qualification is the first step, and it begins with an extensive background check. There are two sections– 401 and 404 of the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act (M.C.L. 333.27401 et seq.) to refer to when identifying who you need to legally reveal as well as whether they have a relevant business interest in your operation. This includes individuals such as the spouse of the individual and also all corporate officers. This is just one of the reasons that it is worth consulting with an Mmma lawyer as it can be quite tricky to get all the information correct. The State will certainly want to do a deep dive into the backgrounds of not only all of the “interested parties,” or members/owners of your cannabis business, but the State will certainly additionally check out the backgrounds of every one of those person’s spouses also. Should any person have a disqualifying criminal conviction in their past, or otherwise be of “good moral character,” the State can reject the whole application. In other words, if there is one bad apple in the bunch, the State throws away the entire application. For that reason, it is very important to know about the histories of the individuals you have in your investment group, before applying for your Medical Marihuana Facilities License. There are a lot of things that an experienced lawyer can do to help you prepare for your application, and to guarantee that any potential concerns with your application are recognized, disclosed or planned for before the application is submitted. However, this isn’t the only reason why an attorney will typically be an important and necessary hire.

Take into consideration The Expense

Before your details can be evaluated by an analyst from the Bureau of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation (BMMR), you need to pay a $6000 fee for your application. BMMR will refuse to move on with your application until this has been paid in full. Along with being costly, this fee is non-refundable so you want to make sure that there are no issues with your application that might bring about it being declined. An MMFLA attorney can make certain that this is the case and help you navigate any difficult concerns. Even more, before you can acquire State approval for operation, you will certainly also have to obtain a municipal or city authorization. Each city or township will certainly likewise require you to finish an application and you will certainly need to pay an application fee there too. The application expense can range depending on what the city wants to charge, nevertheless, they can not charge more than $5,000.00. A lot of cities as well as townships are charging the maximum amount. In total, the application charges alone are most likely to be in excess of $10,000.00. That does not consist of the costs of ancillary services, such as accountants, engineers, marketing experts and also other solutions required for your application to be full.

When you have collected and paid the application fees, all applicants and supplemental candidates will have their fingerprints taken. You may believe that if you currently have actually had your fingerprints taken by local police this step can be skipped. However, BMMR will not accept fingerprints unless they are asked for and collected by them via the licensing process. You will have to go to an authorized location where your finger prints can be collected electronically and also submitted for evaluation by the State.

Facility License

This is the second step and keep in mind, if you have already picked an area to grow marijuana, you can finish this step with the first. You must be prepared to satisfy all the MMFLA rules. During this step, you will need to have a business plan. Nevertheless, that plan needs to include specific things. You must have all of the components needed by the State: facility plan, security plan, marketing plan, staffing plan, technology plan, waste disposal plan (if applicable), and also a record keeping plan. There are specific minimum requirements stated in the Administrative Rules that regulate MMFLA facilities, with which you must show your business is in compliance.

Your facility needs to be located in a city or township that permits MMFLA organisations to run. The MMFLA has strict guidelines for individuals as well as businesses planning to grow in a municipality. If you intend to grow in a municipality, it must have an ordinance that authorizes marihuana facility operations. Colloquially, the municipality has to have “opted-in” to the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act (list of Michigan municipalities that have opted in to MMFLA), as well as it should have passed a regulatory ordinance that sets for the rules and guidelines for those facilities to run within the city or township. The complete guidelines can be discovered in 205, yet if you do have any type of concerns you need to contact your municipal authority. Or, additionally, get your legal representative to do this for you. As the application proceeds, BMMR will certainly speak to candidates, supplying info on any kind of other demands, consisting of a pre-licensure inspection of your location or facility.

Authorized

Ultimately, you might obtain authorization for your license. After you are informed of this, you will certainly need to pay for a regulatory assessment. Currently, the regulatory assessments for 2018 are as follows:

Safety Compliance Facility and Secured Transporters– $0.00.

Class A Grow License– $10,000.

Class B Grow License– $48,000.00.

Class C Grow License– $48,000.00.

Processor and Provisioning Center– $48,000.00.

Likely, the State will establish an across the board equivalent regulatory assessment for all licenses in 2019. Regulatory assessments are subject to change each year, so it is impossible to predict specifically what it will be. However, starting in 2019, despite which license you obtain, expect the assessment to be imposed as well as for that assessment to be substantial.

Conclusion.

We hope this helps you determine whether you are ready to apply for a Michigan commercial grow license. Keep in mind, with an attorney on your side, this process can be far simpler, and also you will obtain expert recommendations on exactly how to proceed correctly to make certain that your application is approved. Even after you acquire authorization, legal guidance is suggested to assure you stay on top of changes to the legislation and also regulations, and so that you can continue to be in compliance as well as keep your company open.

Here at Fowler & Williams, PLC, we concentrate on assisting clients obtain MMFLA licenses and also guaranteeing continuing compliance.

Should you choose to retain counsel to assist you on your licensing journey, give us a call.