Yet another loophole within the current medical marijuana laws has been addressed, this time in Royal Oaks, Michigan. Mayor Jim Ellison says information is being gathered to draft an ordinance that will allow caregivers to grow medical marijuana for up to five patients.

Apparently zoning has become an issue, none of the dispensaries would be allowed in the central business district, the downtown heart of Royal Oaks, but the caregivers would be permitted to set up their business within the general district business area.

A meeting was held last Tuesday, where various viewpoints were shared. Christe Langdeau, one of the attendees that spoke in favor of the ordinance said:

I’ve had the misfortune to see friends die without medicine, and the only thing that can help them is medical marijuana. [...] Many patients are not able to get out of bed. How can they grow their own?

Only one of the speakers, Richard Kozlowski, was against the ideas of having caregivers be able to run a medical marijuana business:

If the city is going to allow caregivers to grow medical marijuana in the general business district, it should also allow it in the central business district.

Kozlowski was concerned with the fact that the dispensaries would be allowed to be set up near private homes and would become as popular as a drug store and gas station, one on every corner.

Obviously certain aspects of the medical marijuana laws need tweaking but it’s good to see someone taking control. Since it is a state law, the state should have thought about taking care of that when they created the bill that became a law. It’s just another prime example of federal, state and local government always passing the buck.

Ever since Michigan’s Medical Marijuana law went into effect Dec. 4, 2008, there seems to have been confusion among Medical Marijuana patients. Under the law, patients who have a note from their doctor, are allowed to have 12 plants. Unfortunately the police are not on the same page, when it comes to the law.

Police Chief Kevin Sagan said:

The law calls for an ID card. So the letter may not be enough.

The new ID cards, for those patients that have a doctor’s note allowing them to use medical marijuana, are being issued by the Michigan Department of Community Health, beginning Saturday, April 4th. Patients that have the note can then request an application to receive the ID card. Once the application is filed, the MDCH staff has 15 days to issue the ID.

120 people have already contacted the MDCH, asking about the applications and the doctor’s note. Some even thought that the health department would distribute medical marijuana.

We don’t want to blow up anyone’s spot, but according to CityPulse, M3A (Michigan Medical Marijuana – an umbrella group serving all of MI) cooperatives have begun meeting in libraries and coffee shops around the state.

The groups gather to act as a support mechanism, members exchange ideas and share information about medical marijuana’s cultivation and uses. Here’s a more formal description:

M3A Compassion Clubs are patient support groups. A place for medical marijuana patients, their caregivers and those who care about them to safely meet and offer mutual support — no different than any other condition-based patient support group. Compassion Clubs are sources of information, emotional support and referrals. Things people do as a community.

The M3A makes it clear that anyone looking to score pot from any members will be out of luck — the group acts in accordance with state law, which prohibits publicly smoking marijuana.

Anyone in the Michigan area who is a MMJ user and wants to meet and converse with other patients can go to M3A’s website for times and dates.

A 19-year-old woman from Berkley was recently arrested after she showed up to 45-A District Court, as a visitor, smelling like (you guessed it,) marijuana. Police officers asked to search the Clinton Township resident shortly after she entered the court.

They found marijuana packaging on her person and then searched her car, where officers found marijuana in her ‘96 Escort. She was arrested without incident and ordered to return to court later in the month. Michigan recently passed a law on the November ballot which legalized medical marijuana in the state. However, it has never been a good idea to show up to court really high with paraphernalia on you.

Less than a month after Michigan approved MMJ, a clinic is already open in metropolitan Detroit.

The clinic will issue temporary identification cards until the state’s card program takes effect in April. Proposition 1 was approved by a 63-37 margin, but is likely to soon see opposition refocus efforts on a local level to ban dispensaries within city limits, as has happened in several other states.

The link leads to a video report by Fox 2 Detroit, check it out.

You almost wonder what took them so long.

Freep.com reports, a team of top national anti-drug officials joined the late-starting campaign to defeat Michigan’s medical marijuana initiative Tuesday. Proposition 1’s opposition referred to it as a dangerous legalization scheme, and the words “despair” and “addiction” actually made their way into the rhetoric.

The group Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Kids was formed late last month by law enforcement and medical organizations that argue that legalizing medical marijuana will make it harder to control cultivation, distribution and sale of the drug.

Ah, but who needs logic when you have unfounded rationalizations and scare tactics.

Another Michigan story, but hey, it’s the center of an embattled legalization measure and worth keeping in the headlines.

Looks like another anti-medical marijuana group is jumping into the legalization fray – the Troy Community Coalition. Their executive director, Ann Comiskey, has written an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press about the evil, unthinkable dangers that a medical marijuana initiative can do to their communities.

This basically equates to a ‘Reefer Madness’ type mentality, with thinly-veiled scare tactics about danger to children and increased violence, crime and abuse.

My favorite line is this one:

Marijuana is an illegal drug, and, admittedly, it makes some people “feel good.” That is what drugs do — make you feel good. That does not make legitimate medicine.

What an educated statement, please tell me more!

The only good thing to come out of this woman’s article, other than the unintended entertainment, is a reference to the Office of Applied Studies. This site has tons of useful and interesting statistics on substance abuse.

See, there is a silver lining to all shitty op-ed clouds…

As an au naturale kind of guy I’m not a huge fan of Marinol – the commonly prescribed, synthetic form of THC.

In Michigan, where the state is about to vote on medical marijuana legalization, one doctor is going on record as saying the pill just doesn’t work, which is why medical marijuana is so important to those seeking relief.

Dr. Elaine Chottiner, the section head of Hematology and Oncology at Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, let this quote drop:

If Marinol worked, nobody would care about legalizing marijuana.

She said absorption is probably one reason the drug doesn’t work as well, since it takes longer to digest and incorporate a compound into the bloodstream than it does to smoke it. Also, Marinol contains only one of marijuana’s 66 compounds.

The main point is relief for the patients, and although the clinical trials of Marinol showed relief for certain kinds of chemotherapy, it is not applicable to all.

In less than a month, November 4th to be exact, Michigan voters are going to decide on the merits of legal, medical cannabis use. Let’s hope the opinions of people in the know help influence their votes.

To update earlier reports, in Michigan, the debate is still raging over the use of medical marijuana as the November vote draws near. As the headline suggests, attitudes seem starkly divided over whether the proposal is a ploy for marijuana users to push for eventual decriminalization and those that feel like the benefits outweigh the risks, which are nonexistent.

Following up on the Michigan story earlier in the week, it looks like medical marijuana is not only on the ballot in Michigan, but is expected to pass swimmingly with 59 percent of the vote.

Score one for the good guys. Take that in the face Judge Laurie like BLAOW!

For the first time, Michigan is placing a piece of medical marijuana legislation on the ballot.

This could be huge. A blue state for the previous four elections, I think one of the big surprises of this move has to be why it took so long. Perhaps its consideration as a traditionally-valued, mid-western state may have contributed to the delay. Regardless, the fact that such a state could put such a proposition on the ballot, indicates a positive shift in thinking across the heartland.

Carmen Granata, a 23 year old Michigan native, likes to party. In Eastpointe, where she owns a house, Carmen decided to have a BBQ and invite friends over. I’ve had plenty of BBQ’s before, and as most people know, some are relaxed and some can get a little rowdy every once in a while. Carmen’s was definitely the 2nd of the two options.

Neighbors called police on her two times between 12AM and 1AM. At close to 4AM, one of Carmen’s friends went outside her porch to talk on a cellphone. The police were called a 3rd time and Carmen was given a ticket for violating the city’s noise ordinance.

This is where it turns weird – thinking that she’d just get a simple fine, Carmen plead Guilty to the noise violation. Biiiig mistake. Judge Norene Redmond gave her 30 days in jail for the infraction. It turns out neighbors had signed a petition saying her house was the site of frequent parties and this heavily swayed the judge.

Surprisingly, her punishment didn’t stop there. Carmen was sentenced to 2 years of drug testing on random date’s each month. Then, she was handed another 2 years worth of probation with daily breath tests for alcohol.

I’ve never heard of or read about such a horribly out-of-place punishment for what is a relatively minor infraction. I can understand the neighbors frustration, but putting a 23 year old girl behind bars for 30 days? That’s just cold.

Carmen’s family has hired a lawyer to get the Guilty plea thrown out of court, an hopefully repeal the sentence handed to her. For her sake, let’s hope it works.

[via Newsvine]

If anyone has watched the Penn & Teller: War on Drugs episode, you’ll recognize this man. His name is Ervin Rosenfeld and he is 1 of 5 people alive today who is on the federal medical marijuana program.

He suffers from a debilitating disease that causes “bone tumors to grow outwardly all throughout his body.” In this video, Ervin makes an impassioned speech to the Michigan courts for the legalization of marijuana.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and recap the entire video, but here are a few eyebrow-raising points:

• Ervin smokes 11 ounces of marijuana every 25 days
• Ervin’s marijuana is grown on the University of Mississippi campus
• The DEA conducted a 2 year study of herb and it was found to be one of the most benign substances known to man
• In a 10 year study, not one single case of lung cancer developed as a result of using marijuana
• Jail overcrowding has placed non-violent drug offenders behind bars while violent prisoners are let out early
• There isn’t a single death recorded in the history of mankind that is directly the related to an overdose on marijuana. How many substances can say that?

All in all, this is some damn powerful stuff and definitely worth nine minutes of your day.

[via SoulCast]

The measure, which aims to be placed on the 2008 Michigan ballot, would allow a resident to use weed for medical or recreational uses. The recreational use would have to take place on private property and only be allowed for those 18 and older. Smoking in public places is still liable to a civil infraction of up to a $50 fine.

The measure needs to gather 304,000 signatures within a 6 month period. A slightly different measure attempted to get on the 2006 ballot, but did not have all the signatures required. Let’s hope that with a fresh start, and some nice legal momentum, this new measure will grab enough of a foothold to be put up for vote.

[via Lansing State Jounral]