Am I Ready To Apply for a Medical Marihuana Facilities Grow License?

Thinking about beginning a Medical Marihuana Grow to ensure that you can offer marijuana to the medical marihuana market? Are you a Medical Marihuana Act licensed caregiver that wishes to take your product commercial on a bigger range? Thanks to the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act, currently you can do so legally, as long as you can successfully acquire a license from the State to do so. This can be a fantastic possibility with many brand-new owners seeing tremendous degrees of earnings and success in the market. Nonetheless, if you make this decision, you do need to make sure that you obtain a Michigan commercial grow license. Failing to do so will lead to your venture being, probably, prohibited as well as bring about court action that will maim your organisation before it starts.

However, the Michigan commercial grow license application is a long, complicated and also costly process. Ask a medical marijuana attorney, and they will certainly tell you that you need to make certain that you are prepared. Let's take a look at the actions you will need to take, the team you need to build as well as the position that you could find yourself in.

Who Can Apply?

The very first concern to ask yourself is whether or not you are qualified to apply for a Medical Marihuana Facilities license. The bright side is that anyone, an individual or a full business can apply for a license. Applications began in 2017, and there is currently no due date to finish the needed forms. Certainly, there are specific people, who, due to the fact that they can not satisfy the minimal economic requirements, or because they have a disqualifying criminal conviction in their history, are prevented from applying. However, thinking you do not have a disqualifying criminal conviction, as well as you, or your team of financiers, satisfy the minimal financial needs, there are 2 primary actions to the MMFLA licensing application process. The initial step will be finished whether you have a final location for your building or not. Nevertheless, if you have already picked a location before sending your State application, something that we extremely advise, you can finish both actions at the very 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 determining who you need to legally disclose and whether they have a relevant business interest in your operation. This includes people such as the spouse of the individual as well as all corporate officers. This is just one of the reasons that it is worth consulting with an MMMA attorney as it can be quite difficult to get all the information correct. The State will wish to do a deep dive into the backgrounds of not only all of the "interested parties," or members/owners of your marijuana service, but the State will certainly additionally consider the histories of every one of those individual's spouses as well. Should any individual have a disqualifying criminal conviction in their past, or not be of "good moral character," the State can deny the whole application. Simply put, if there is one bad apple in the bunch, the State throws out the entire application. As a result, it is very important to understand about the backgrounds of the persons you have in your investment group, before applying for your Medical Marihuana Facilities License. There are a lot of things that a skilled attorney can do to help you plan for your application, and also to make certain that any possible concerns with your application are known, divulged or prepared for before the application is sent. Nonetheless, this isn't the only reason why a lawyer will commonly be a vital and necessary hire.

Think about The Cost

Before your information can be reviewed 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 certainly reject to move on with your application until this has been paid completely. As well as being expensive, this fee is non-refundable so you want to make certain that there are no problems with your application that might lead to it being declined. An MMFLA attorney can make sure that this is the case and also help you navigate any difficult problems. Even more, before you can acquire State authorization for operation, you will certainly also have to get a municipal or city approval. Each city or township will also require you to finish an application as well as you will certainly have to pay an application fee there too. The application price can range depending on what the city wants to charge, nevertheless, they can not charge greater than $5,000.00. Most cities and townships are charging the maximum amount. In total, the application costs alone are most likely to be in excess of $10,000.00. That does not consist of the costs of ancillary services, such as accounting professionals, designers, marketers and various other services essential for your application to be complete.

When you have collected as well as paid the application fees, all applicants and also supplemental candidates will have their fingerprints taken. You could think that if you currently have actually had your finger prints taken by local law enforcement this action can be missed. However, BMMR will certainly decline finger prints unless they are asked for as well as collected by them via the licensing procedure. You will need to go to an approved place where your finger prints can be collected digitally and also submitted for evaluation by the State.

Facility License

This is the 2nd step and keep in mind, if you have already chosen a place to grow cannabis, you can complete this step with the first. You should be prepared to satisfy all the MMFLA rules. During this step, you will certainly need to have a business plan. However, that plan should include specific things. You must have every one of the parts called for 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 has to be located in a city or township that allows MMFLA companies to run. The MMFLA has strict rules for people and also businesses preparing to grow in a municipality. If you want to grow in a town, it has to have an ordinance that authorizes marihuana facility operations. Colloquially, the municipality must have "opted-in" to the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act (list of Michigan municipalities who have actually opted in to MMFLA), as well as it has to have passed a regulatory ordinance that sets for the policies and also guidelines for those centers to operate within the city or township. The full standards 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 advances, BMMR will certainly speak to applicants, providing information on any type of various other needs, consisting of a pre-licensure inspection of your location or facility.

Approved

Ultimately, you might get authorization for your license. After you are informed of this, you will 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 annually, so it is impossible to predict specifically what it will be. However, starting in 2019, no matter which license you get, expect the assessment to be imposed and for that assessment to be substantial.

Conclusion.

We hope this helps you make a decision whether you are ready to apply for a Michigan commercial grow license. Remember, with a lawyer by your side, this process can be much easier, as well as you will certainly acquire expert guidance on exactly how to proceed correctly to ensure that your application is approved. Even after you get authorization, legal advice is suggested to guarantee you stay on top of changes to the law and guidelines, and so that you can stay in compliance and keep your business open.

Here at Fowler & Williams, PLC, we concentrate on assisting customers acquire MMFLA licenses and making sure continuing compliance.

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