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Union Township to vote on medical marijuana dispensary laws as attorney general challenges operations

By Jordan Spence on July 5, 2011 7:00 pm in Union Township / 7 comments

 

Local governments are attempting to zone and regulate medical marijuana in a legally unsteady time for Michigan’s Medical Marihuana Act.

Union Township introduced the draft for adoption to zone and license dispensaries June 22. The final vote will be July 13 and the law, if passed, will go into effect seven days afterward.

“After Attorney General Bill Schuette released an opinion about medical marijuana recently, it has changed the landscape for our regulations,” said township zoning administrator Woody Woodruff.  ”We’re waiting to hear from our lawyers about how to proceed. But we will follow under the parameters of Schuette’s opinion.”

Township treasurer Pam Stovak said the zoning and licensing regulations the township will implement help to put a framework around what can be influenced.

The legality of caregiver and patient transfer is being challenged in a case filed by Isabella County Prosecutor Larry Burdick against Compassionate Apothecary, 311 Michigan Ave., a medical marijuana dispensary now operating as C.A. of Mount Pleasant.  A final ruling is expected this month.

“If patient-to-patient transfers are ruled illegal, the only way to get their medicine is if they grow it for themselves or if a caregiver can grow for them,” said Brandon McQueen, co-owner of C.A. “This is going to be a make-or-break case for the whole law.”

McQueen said the apothecary wants its patients to be self-sufficient or find trustworthy caregivers, but there has to be a third option of patient-to-patient transfers, or it has no way to get the medical marijuana.

Burdick said the appeals courts have their work cut out for them, and hopes the ruling is released by the end of the month.

“I think the court is well aware of the urgency of this issue,” Burdick said. “I think that it will help local governments, it will help clear things up.”

Burdick’s case is supported by Schuette who declared in his formal opinion on June 28 there are only two legal ways patients can access medical marijuana.

They can either grow up to 12 plants or get it from a registered caregiver who can grow 12 plants for five patients.

“The Michigan Medical Marihuana Act prohibits the joint cooperative cultivation or sharing of marijuana plants,” Schuette said in an official statement, “because each patient’s plants must be grown and maintained in a separate enclosed, locked facility that is only accessible to the registered patient or the patient’s registered primary caregiver.”

 

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  • Ibegone

    Great idea.  Follow the attorney generals rule that anything to do with medical marijuana is illegal.
    How stupid are those who we elect?
    The only way to remove a hypocritical … such as Schuette, is to replace the governor.
    A twofer.
    Vote with your opinion, not your party people.

  • Ibegone

    Great idea.  Follow the attorney generals rule that anything to do with medical marijuana is illegal.
    How stupid are those who we elect?
    The only way to remove a hypocritical … such as Schuette, is to replace the governor.
    A twofer.
    Vote with your opinion, not your party people.

  • Joejack101

    Let’s see….have someone grow medical marihuana for you that sells for 4 times the black market price for regular detroit buds that ship heavy everywhere around and actually most of the honest patients are probably on a very limited or severe budget and 800 to one grand for a couple ounces of medicine won’t work…and what is the other option?  Gee let me see…..The Governor says point blank you can grow your own up to 12 plants.  Now I’m no scientest but it seems like 12 plants grown indoors professionally as they would have to be to produce medical grade marihuana would grow quite a bit of medicine right? So if you grow one plant and it makes the 2 ounces how in the world does this work out?  Maybe I just can’t do the math.  Call me dumb dumb…will wait to hear from patients and see what they tell me if I get lucky and meet any. 

  • Guest

    Stagger the planting so that the harvest coincides with the usable supply being nearly gone. Harvest one, start another.

  • Guest

    Stagger the planting so that the harvest coincides with the usable supply being nearly gone. Harvest one, start another.

  • Guest

    Stagger the planting so that the harvest coincides with the usable supply being nearly gone. Harvest one, start another.

  • Scott

    Where are you getting that medical marijuana is 4 times the black market price? and I don’t know what your talking about here…..”Now I’m no scientest but it seems like 12 plants grown indoors professionally as they would have to be to produce medical grade marihuana would grow quite a bit of medicine right?”.  Harvesting one plant a month would give a light user enough medicine for a month.  BUT if you are a care giver it is not like you grow this stuff for free.  12 plants with proper lighting will run in around 350.00 a month for electricity alone, not to mention food, water, cooling and humidity control (if done properly as not to contaminate the growing area and surrounding with mold or left over fertilizers).  At 250.00 an ounce (two ounces per plant average) that would be 500.00 per oz.  so care givers aren’t carring bags of cash to the bank.  The only way a caregiver can really make a living at growing is to find 5 patients but then you have the problem of were to put them as this would be up to 60 plants.  This is where these regulations are really tieing the caregivers hands and making them operate like pre-law conditions.  I have searched high and low for a site that will provide the proper grow environment and they just don’t exist with these conditions put on growers.  People need to get out of the past and with all the push in Washington to take marijuana off the controled substance list a new age of legal marijuana both state and federal is coming within the next 5 years.