According to the Court of Appeals, it's illegal for you to take those overages to the dispensary. They stated that the only way for you to get any compensation is from patients that you are connected to by the registry. So if you want to obey the law, you have two choices: ask the patients for money, or go broke.
If you're spending 40 hours a week or more growing, learning, and delivering, then yes, you should be making a living off of it. If you can't, few will do it. No one will let their kids starve because they decided to work for free full-time for charity, using up all their time and energy, and turning down paying jobs.
Time is money - this is what those who have lived sheltered lives never seen to understand. If you spend all your time doing something that pays nothing, you will have no time to do things that pay. If it costs $500 a month to keep the grow running, $5000 to get it started, your mortgage is $1000 a month, you have three kids to feed and are a single parent so this costs you at least 20 hours a week, and the growing, researching, and delivering costs you another 40 hours a week, what are you going to do? Be generous and ask for no compensation? This would do the patients no favors. This path is a short one to foreclosure - the end of the grow - and being thrown out of your house by the sheriff.
Every hour spent volunteering is an hour that could be spent working for pay. And most of us in Michigan need money very badly. Especially patients - who are frequently also caregivers. Many of these evil caregivers that don't give free meds every month are using that money to buy medicines they can barely afford... for bus fares... etc...
There's 168 hours in the week. We need 56 hours of sleep a week to remain healthy. Attending to hygiene, running errands, and preparing healthy meals is going to take another 20 hours a week, minimum. We're already down to 92 hours available in the week, max - what about time spent socializing? Recreation? Exercising? Taking a break on the weekend to spend time with the wife and kids? To feel vaguely like a normal middle class person, and not a sweatshop slave on the verge of a nervous meltdown with a disintegrating family, this is going to cost at least another 20 hours a week. 72 left now. What about time spent taking care of the kids? Unless you plan on being negligent - another 20 hours is gone. Now you have 52 hours in the week left to earn a living. If growing and delivering takes a single second of this time, you can't maintain a salaried job. I don't know anyone working full time who works less than 50 hours a week. So by growing and delivering for patients they are sacrificing the opportunity for a well paid job, and throwing away a lot of income. If the growing takes even just an average of 20 hours a week - a rather low estimate for a big garden - how are they going to make enough of a living to pay the mortgage, pay $500 in grow related bills every month, feed the kids, get health insurance, etc. (not even going to mention things like taking the kids on "vacation" somewhere other than with you to work once in a while!) if all they have is 30 hours of time a week, and the patients refuse to compensate them in any way for the risk and sacrifice they've endured? Not going to happen!
Try walking a mile in their shoes before you judge...
