The first recreational marijuana shops will open this summer and the state says more than 200 applications have already been submitted for consideration.

Among the first already approved are businesses who plan to operate in communities where cannabis arrest rates were high--and that's no coincidence. 

Attorney and cannabis entrepreneur Laury Lucien has big dreams for her marijuana dispensary.

"When you have an opportunity to operate in this sphere where people are still left out, you have a responsibility to make those wrongs right," said Lucien.

Lucien is one of the 113 preliminary applications who applied for a so-called economic empowerment license under the state's recreational marijuana law.

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In a story of strange political bedfellows, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is working with the office of Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner on an upcoming bill that would prevent the federal government from interfering with the marijuana system here and in other states that have legalized.

As noted by NORML political director Justin Strekal, Gardner has confirmed that he's teaming up with Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, "to craft legislation that would reduce the tension between federal prohibition and states that have moved forward with legalizing marijuana for medicinal or adult use. And we're working with a number of offices to make sure the language is going to be right and palatable to a bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senate."

RELATED: Sen. Cory Gardner to Bring Bipartisan Cannabis Bill to Senate Floor

Senator Gardner's office hasn't returned our calls; when and if someone gets back to us, we'll update this post. But late last month, Gardner told Yahoo News that "basically, this is a states' rights bill. This is a federalism bill that says if a state like Colorado decides to move forward on medical marijuana, recreational marijuana, CBDs ...hemp, that that activity is going to be lawfully, legally carried out."

To put it mildly, Gardner, who's tried to portray himself as a moderate in advance of what looks to be a challenging re-election bid in 2020, has done a complete 180 on legal marijuana. He opposed Amendment 64, the 2012 measure that legalized limited recreational marijuana sales in Colorado, and the following year, he wrote letters to then-attorney general Eric Holder and President Barack Obama ripping the so-called Cole memo, which allowed marijuana businesses to continue to operate in places like Colorado as long as they obeyed state law. The gist of his message was that if Colorado could casually ignore the federal Controlled Substances Act, which lists marijuana as a Schedule I narcotic, then states could presumably refuse to abide by Obamacare, too.

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Michigan cannabis businesses that do not receive a formal license from the state by June 15 will be advised to halt operations at that time.

A new bulletin issued by the state reasserts the June 15 deadline for medical marijuana business licenses.

The announcement comes amid concerns that the state isn’t processing medical marijuana applications quickly enough. More than 300 businesses filed applications with the state by the Feb. 15 deadline; so far, not a single business has received a license. Regulators cite the sheer size and complexity of these applications, with photos depicting sprawling reams of paper and manila folders circulating among state and local press. Each application, as in other legal state markets, necessitates criminal background checks on all listed employees and financial records analyses.

According to Interlochen Public Radio: “The department doesn’t plan to send out cease and desist orders or alert law enforcement to shops, if those shops have a pending application that was submitted by the February deadline. However, the board in charge of granting or denying licenses could use a shop’s decision to stay open against them when ultimately deciding if they’ll get a license.” 

Read the full bulletin here:

Michigan Advisory Bulletin, May 3, 2018 by sandydocs on Scribd

Top image: © Joshua Rainey | Dreamstime.com