Pubdate: Fri, 3 Sep 2010
Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)
Copyright: 2010 Detroit Free Press
Contact: http://www.freep.com/article/99999999/opinion04/50926009
Website: http://www.freep.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/125
Author: Bill Laitner, Free Press Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Michigan+medical+marijuana
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Oakland+County
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?275 (Cannabis - Michigan)

JUDGE ALLOWS MEDICAL MARIJUANA DEFENDANTS' USE

A district judge in Ferndale said Thursday that he would allow 
state-approved medical marijuana defendants to keep using the drug 
while out on bond -- a sharp contrast to a Waterford judge's 
statement Tuesday that deemed marijuana use by defendants in a 
parallel case to be a bond violation.

The contrast in treatment for those arrested in metro Detroit's first 
major medical marijuana raids showed the breadth of interpretations 
for the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, Wayne State University law 
school professor Bob Sedler said.

After Thursday's brief hearings for 10 defendants, Ferndale District 
Judge Joseph Longo told the Free Press that any who were 
state-approved patients could use marijuana while awaiting trial. The 
defendants are to appear at a hearing Sept. 20.

Both sets of defendants were arrested Aug. 25 in raids by the Oakland 
County Narcotics Enforcement Team.

"They have every right to use whatever medications" their physicians 
prescribe, Longo said.

On Tuesday, Waterford District Judge Richard Kuhn Jr. said none of 
the 13 defendants in cases assigned to him could use marijuana while 
free on bond, despite any doctors' statements they offered about 
their medical conditions.

After Kuhn's ruling, former Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca 
- -- once a vehement foe of illegal drugs, now a defense attorney -- 
said the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act "gives any of these people 
the right" to use the drug as medicine.

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Thursday that the two 
groups included operators and customers of medical marijuana sales 
outlets, called dispensaries, which he said are not allowed by Michigan's law.

But medical marijuana advocates, as well as Bouchard, have said the 
raids and resulting criminal charges -- felonies with jail terms as 
long as seven years -- could become landmark cases that force 
Michigan's court system to decide such issues as whether dispensaries 
are legal. Voters in 2008 passed the state law that lets approved 
patients use medical marijuana and lets approved caregivers provide the drug. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake