The state of Michigan owes thousands of people a medical marijuana card. Officials say a new printer will help solve that problem.
Representatives from the state's Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, who handle all the paperwork and applications when it comes to medical marijuana, say they are one busy office.
When the law originally passed they had 3 employees, but over the last three years they've had to increase their staff to meet the volume. Now they're bringing in some new equipment to stay as efficient as they can.
"When the program was initially started we were led to believe that we would have anywhere from 2,000 to 50,000 patients," said Rae Ramsdell, who works in licensing and regulatory affairs.
But now there are more than 130,000 registered medical marijuana patients.
"It's a very busy office," said Ramsdell.
Ramsdell says the medical marijuana program is so busy they have a back log of about 40,000 people waiting for their medical marijuana cards.
"The printer that we purchased would allow us to print about 800 cards a day…and that wasn't sufficient enough with the number of actual applications we were processing. So we were able to secure a printer that would allow us to print about 4,000 cards a day," said Ramsdell.
On an average day, Ramsdell says they get about 600 pieces of mail and the majority of it is new applications.
"Typically in a regulatory program where you're issuing licenses it slows down. This program has done nothing but increase. We've recently seen a small decrease in the number applications, but we don't know if that's going to continue or not," said Ramsdell.
Only time will tell what's in store for the years to come. In the meantime, those people waiting for their cards have been sent a tamper proof state issued letter.
Ramsdell says the printer will be in sometime this month and she says the cost is completely covered by the fees of those who apply for cards.
