Dozens of medical marijuana dispensaries are sprinkled in cities across the state, and Detroit has 61 pot shops open for business. But come this time next year, the landscape for weed around the state could be completely different.

That’s when the state will begin officially handing out licenses to growers, testing facilities, transporters and dispensaries.

The state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) is beginning to gear up for the task of regulating a new, and potentially very lucrative, business in the state. The medical marijuana business is projected to generate revenues of more than $700 million, and if a ballot proposal goes to voters in 2018 and the market is opened for recreational use, too, those revenues will easily surpass $1 billion.

“Most states have had two years to get this going,” said Shelly Edgerton, director of LARA. “For us, this is a huge endeavor.”

Andrew Brisbo, who has served as LARA’s licensing division director, has been named as the director of the newly created Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation. He will be in charge of the department that could grow to nearly 100 employees who investigate all license applicants and ultimately regulate the medical marijuana business and administer the system that tracks medical marijuana from seed to sale. [Read more at Detroit Free Press]