Many medicinal marijuana dispensaries didn’t get a good start to the new year.
According to a WXYZ Detroit article, many medical marijuana businesses in the state of Michigan were shut down due to the state’s deadline for businesses to get a license.
Several dispensaries have said the shut downs were wrong as they believe they should have received their licenses months ago.
“If you’re going to open any of them, this is the place that needs to be open right here,” Allison Fuller said in the report. Fuller is a customer at Holistic Health Wayne.
“There’s so many cancer patients that come here for Rick Simpson oil, and know they have nowhere to go. So there’s actually people that are dying that have nowhere to go for their medication,” Fuller said.
“Those dispensaries that have been operating under that temporary operation have to get a state license in order to continue to distribute marijuana,” said Barton Morris, Principal attorney at the Cannabis Legal Group.
Temporary operators have been given approval from the cities they’re established in, but are still waiting on state approval.
“The applications still haven’t come up yet to the marijuana licensing board and others have been simply denied,” Morris remarked.
The closures have left many medicinal marijuana patients helpless. “I’m forced to find meds elsewhere, an undesirable, probably not a safe location,” said Jeremy Mikeska, a medical marijuana user.
“I thought we were all set when we did this voting, apparently not, I don’t understand it,” Alan Horn, another medicinal marijuana user said.
“Probably have to revert to the black market or to the caregiver system,” Morris said of what some patients will resort to.
