Indopedia All Things Marijuana
At the time, state regulators promised that hundreds more dispensaries would be closed, and this week, the other shoe dropped.
Many of these establishments opened under Michigan’s lightly-regulated medical cannabis program, which was passed in 2008.
The state’s new cannabis regulations are set to go into effect next month, and officials decided that any canna-business that had not applied for an official license prior to February 15th would be shut down. Over 150 of these businesses are located in Detroit, with another eight in Lansing and Flint each, and the remaining few scattered throughout the state.
“After the news of the first round of letters hit, we found a lot more had voluntarily closed before we got there,” LARA spokesperson David Harns
The closure of such a large number of dispensaries may limit the supply of medicine to the state’s 277,000 registered patients, but Harns noted that there are still 215 dispensaries open in the state. These businesses all submitted their license applications by the February 15th deadline, and have received either temporary or full approval from their local communities to continue operating. “There are more open than we’ve sent cease and desist letters to,” Harns
