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So just how lucrative is the medical pot business? Apparently plenty, given one man allegedly offered to pay $20,000 a month in bribes to Garden City officials for a dispensary permit and $150,000 to state officials for a grow license. Detroit Free Press
Marijuana plants receive light at the Desert Grown Farms cultivation facility in Las Vegas in June 2017.(Photo: John Locher, AP)
The state will stick with high capitalization requirements for people getting into the medical marijuana industry, but is expanding what qualifies as an asset.
The capitalization requirements will stay at the proposed rates of $150,000 for the class A growing license for people who want to grow up to 500 plants and up to $500,000 for a Class C growing license, which allows for between 1,001 and 1,500 plants.
The requirements don’t mean that a potential medical marijuana business person has to have that much cash. They just have to show that they have enough assets to support the business.
And in an effort to make it easier for businesses to qualify for a license, only 25% of those assets will have to be liquid — something easily converted into cash, such as retirement accounts, stocks and bonds, bank accounts or marijuana inventory. The rest can be real estate, equipment or supplies for the business.
The ruling from the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs this week comes despite a public hearing last month where dozens of people argued that the high asset requirements will put the medical marijuana business out of reach for small operators.
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