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

Thinking about starting a Medical Marihuana Grow to make sure that you can supply marijuana to the medical marihuana market? Are you a Medical Marihuana Act licensed caregiver who intends to take your item commercial on a larger scale? Thanks to the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act, currently you can do so legally, so long as you can successfully acquire a license from the State to do so. This can be a superb possibility with lots of brand-new owners seeing remarkable levels of revenue as well as success in the market. Nonetheless, if you make this choice, you do need to ensure that you obtain a Michigan commercial grow license. Failing to do so will result in your endeavor being, most likely, prohibited as well as lead to court activity that will certainly paralyze your service before it starts.

However, the Michigan commercial grow license application is a long, complicated and also expensive process. Ask a medical marijuana attorney, and they will certainly tell you that you need to make sure that you are prepared. Let's look at the steps you will certainly have to take, the team you need to build and also the position that you may find yourself in.

Who Can Apply?

The initial inquiry to ask yourself is whether or not you are qualified to apply for a Medical Marihuana Facilities license. Fortunately is that anyone, an individual or a full company can apply for a license. Applications started in 2017, and also there is currently no target date to finish the necessary forms. Obviously, there are particular individuals, that, because they can not satisfy the minimal economic needs, or due to the fact that they have a disqualifying criminal conviction in their history, are prevented from applying. Nevertheless, assuming you do not have a disqualifying criminal conviction, as well as you, or your team of investors, satisfy the minimum financial demands, there are 2 primary steps to the MMFLA licensing application process. The primary step will be finished whether you have a final location for your building or not. Nevertheless, if you have actually already selected a location prior to submitting your State application, something that we highly advise, you can finish both actions at the very same time.

Pre-Qualification

Pre-qualification is the primary step, and it begins with an extensive background check. There are two sections-- 401 as well as 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 consists of people such as the spouse of the individual and all corporate officers. This is just one of the reasons that it is worth speaking with an MMMA attorney as it can be quite complicated to get all the details correct. The State will certainly wish to do a deep dive into the backgrounds of not only all of the "interested parties," or members/owners of your marijuana organisation, but the State will certainly additionally check into the histories of every one of those person's spouses also. Should anybody have a disqualifying criminal conviction in their past, or otherwise be of "good moral character," the State can deny the whole application. To put it simply, if there is one bad apple in the bunch, the State tosses out the entire application. As a result, it is essential to learn about the backgrounds of the individuals you have in your investment group, prior to applying for your Medical Marihuana Facilities License. There are a lot of things that a knowledgeable lawyer can do to aid you plan for your application, and to guarantee that any type of prospective problems with your application are known, disclosed or gotten ready for before the application is sent. However, this isn't the only reason why a lawyer will commonly be a vital and required hire.

Think about The Expense

Before your info can be evaluated by an expert 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 decline to move forward with your application until this has been paid completely. In addition to being pricey, this fee is non-refundable so you want to make certain that there are no issues with your application that can cause it being denied. An MMFLA attorney can make certain that this is the case as well as help you navigate any type of tricky problems. Even more, before you can get State authorization for operation, you will also have to get a municipal or city approval. Each city or township will additionally need you to complete an application as well as you will certainly have to pay an application fee there as well. The application price can vary depending on what the city wants to charge, nevertheless, they can not charge more than $5,000.00. Many cities and townships are charging the maximum amount. In total, the application costs alone are likely to be in excess of $10,000.00. That doesn't consist of the costs of ancillary services, such as accountants, designers, marketing professionals as well as various other services essential for your application to be full.

Once you have collected as well as paid the application fees, all candidates and supplemental candidates will have their finger prints taken. You may think that if you already have actually had your fingerprints taken by local law enforcement this action can be skipped. Nonetheless, BMMR will not accept finger prints unless they are requested and also collected by them with the licensing process. You will certainly have to go to an approved place where your fingerprints can be collected digitally as well as sent for evaluation by the State.

Facility License

This is the second step and remember, if you have already picked a place to grow marijuana, you can complete this step with the first. You should be prepared to fulfill all the MMFLA rules. During this step, you will need to have a business plan. Nevertheless, that plan should include certain things. You must have all of the parts required 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 services to run. The MMFLA has strict policies for individuals and companies intending to grow in a municipality. If you intend to grow in a community, it needs 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 needs to have passed a regulatory ordinance that sets for the rules as well as guidelines for those facilities to run within the city or township. The full guidelines can be found in 205, yet if you do have any type of concerns you need to call your municipal authority. Or, conversely, get your legal representative to do this for you. As the application progresses, BMMR will speak to applicants, supplying information on any various other needs, including a pre-licensure inspection of your location or facility.

Authorized

Ultimately, you might obtain approval for your license. After you are notified of this, you will certainly need to pay for a regulatory assessment. Presently, 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 precisely what it will be. Nevertheless, beginning in 2019, regardless of which license you obtain, expect the assessment to be imposed and for that assessment to be significant.

Conclusion.

We hope this helps you decide whether you are ready to apply for a Michigan commercial grow license. Remember, with a legal representative on your side, this process can be much simpler, and also you will get experienced suggestions on how to proceed correctly to make certain that your application is approved. Even after you acquire approval, legal advice is suggested to assure you stay on top of modifications to the legislation and also policies, and so that you can stay in compliance as well as keep your business open.

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

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