After receiving hundreds of complaints from medical marijuana card holders that they would be without the product they need for their health for an extended period of time, the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs reversed itself Wednesday and decided to let dispensaries stay open during the licensing process.
The department had come up with a ruling in September that dispensaries should close by Dec. 15, which is the day that applications for five categories of licenses become available, or risk losing their chances of getting one of the lucrative licenses.
But medical marijuana cardholders—more than 272,000 in Michigan—worried that the lapse of time between applications and licenses being awarded by the state early next year would leave many of them without access to the product they use to treat a variety of ailments from cancer to epilepsy.
So the state approved an emergency rule Wednesday that will allow existing dispensaries that have gone through an approval process in the community where they operate to stay open while they go through the state licensing process.
Top image: © Joshua Rainey | Dreamstime.com
