Michigan sets health standards for medical cannabis businesses

It may be OK for legal users to lick cannabis pre-rolls, but it’s not allowed inside a medical marijuana facility.

That’s one of Michigan’s health and safety rules issued in advance of the state’s new MMJ regulatory regime.

An advisory bulletin this week from the state’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) follows one last month that cautioned medical marijuana provisioning centers – the approved term – not to call themselves or promote their businesses as “dispensaries.”

The new bulletin warns of other “examples of practices with the potential for contamination,” including:

• Touching marijuana with one’s bare hands or after touching one’s eyes, nose or mouth.
• Packaging marijuana on surfaces that haven’t been properly sanitized.
• Eating, drinking or smoking while packaging marijuana.

Michigan is restructuring its medical marijuana industry, one of the largest in the country, as a result of a 2016 law aimed at tightening regulations and addressing past loopholes and ambiguities.

The state’s review of applications, though, has bogged down, and regulators recently extended the licensing deadline until Sept. 15 for businesses to be allowed to remain open under temporary approval.