Pubdate: Sun, 26 Sep 2010
Source: Daily Telegram, The (Adrain, MI)
Copyright: 2010 GateHouse Media, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.lenconnect.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1556
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?275 (Cannabis - Michigan)

MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW IN NEED OF CURE

When Michigan voters overwhelmingly made medical marijuana legal in 
2008, they certainly intended well. Terminally ill patients would 
have official access to the natural palliative, voters thought. 
Chronic pain sufferers and their growers would no longer live in fear 
of arrest and imprisonment, supporters promised.

Reality hasn't cooperated.

. On Sept. 15 in a 30-page opinion, Michigan Court of Appeals judge 
Peter O'Connell told lawmakers to clarify the state's law. He said 
the law is so confusing, with sections contradicting public health 
codes, that users "who proceed without due caution" could "lose both 
their property and their liberty."

. On July 6, DEA agents raided the Saginaw County home of a couple 
who were licensed by the state to use marijuana. The couple and law 
enforcement disagree over whether they were following the state law.

. In August, deputies raided medical marijuana dispensaries in 
Dryden, Ferndale and Waterford, closing the dispensary in Dryden and 
seizing patient medical records.

. Last week, Summit Township in Jackson County joined several other 
municipalities in imposing a six-month ban on dispensaries because of 
unresolved legal issues and zoning questions.

Yet while Berkley Mayor Marilyn Stephan said the law has become an 
enforcement nightmare, the problems were actually very predictable. 
And there are partial remedies Michigan officials should pursue. For 
starters, lawmakers must resolve conflicts between existing health 
codes and the new law. Otherwise, users can carefully follow the 
medical marijuana law and still have their lives turned upside down 
by law enforcement officers carefully following health statutes.

Second, the state must address dispensaries as well as 
patient-to-patient marijuana transfers. The 2008 amendment did not, 
much as it generally did not lay out a legal supply chain to obtain 
cannabis. That's dumped the issue onto local governments.

As we stated in 2008, however, so long as marijuana possession 
remains a federal crime, state rules can only offer an illusion of 
immunity. According to the Supreme Court, state marijuana laws cannot 
nullify the federal ban. Assurances by Attorney General Eric Holder 
that federal agents would stop raiding medical marijuana dispensaries 
have not stopped the raids. In fact, FBI data showed 2009 featured 
the second-most marijuana arrests in history. Of those arrests, 88 
percent (758,593) were for possession only.

Legal limbo confuses citizens and frustrates them with the legal 
system in general. The real answer has always been for Congress to 
review federal law. Polls show popular support shifting toward 
legalizing marijuana. Congress should ease the federal prohibition, 
even if only for medically prescribed pain relief.

Good intentions, after all, are no substitute for laws that actually 
provide relief. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake