Pubdate: Sun, 22 Apr 2012
Source: Livingston County Daily Press & Argus (MI)
Copyright: 2012 Livingston Daily Press & Argus
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/Kk1qVKJf
Website: http://www.livingstondaily.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4265
Author: Denise A. Pollicella
Note: Denise A. Pollicella, managing partner of Cannabis Attorneys of 
Mid-Michigan and a graduate of Wayne State University Law School, is 
the mother of two and practices corporate law, business transactions 
and medical marijuana law in Livingston County. She has degrees in 
political science and French from the University of Michigan in Ann 
Arbor, and is a founding member of the Michigan chapter of Mothers 
United to End the War on Drugs. E-mail your comments to RULING SENDS MICHIGAN MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW UP IN SMOKE

In five brief pages full of legal reasoning and bereft of common 
sense, the Michigan Court of Appeals has, for all intents and 
purposes, rendered the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act useless.

On April 17, the court published its opinion in People v. Koon, 
holding that the MMMA does not contain an exemption for drivers under 
the state's criminal code, which prohibits operating a vehicle with 
any amount of a Schedule I controlled substance in your system.

The problem is that, unlike the other Schedule I drugs such as heroin 
and meth, the main active compound in marijuana, known as THC, stores 
in your fat cells, keeping it in your body for weeks, well after its 
affects have worn off, and no accurate test has been developed to 
determine when active THC becomes a harmless byproduct.

The effect of this decision, which flies in the face of a 2010 
Michigan Supreme Court ruling, is that you cannot drive a car after 
ingesting medicinal marijuana without a presumption that you are 
breaking the law. Yes, you heard right. You can't be a medical 
marijuana patient and drive a car.

With legislation pending that would make marijuana patient card 
information available to law enforcement, the card could now, by 
itself, be used as prima facie evidence of impaired driving.

This decision is just one in a growing line of Michigan court rulings 
that not only clearly ignore the intent of the MMMA, but seem 
determined to strictly construe it out of existence.

Let's be clear. Marijuana is a plant that has been used as a medicine 
for thousands of years but, like any other drug, can be abused and 
used recreationally. The MMMA simply sought to carve out protection 
against criminal prosecution for seriously ill people or those with 
chronic pain to use this plant as an alternative to traditional drugs.

Sixty-three percent of Michigan's voters in 2008 thought it was a 
good idea. Voters and legislatures in 18 other states do, too. 
Seventy-five percent of the country agrees.

Since its inception, however, the MMMA has received no support from 
our elected officials and nothing but unadulterated attacks by law 
enforcement and the courts.

Very sick people, like Joseph Casias, whose life was quite literally 
saved by marijuana, but was then fired from his job for it, have 
become victims of a law meant to protect them.

Take a good look around. More than 130,000 people in Michigan are 
medical marijuana patients, and for every one with a card, there are 
five more who haven't registered, either because they have been using 
it for so long they don't want to bother, or because they are 
justifiably scared that they will be targeted. These aren't teenage 
potheads experimenting in the high school parking lot. These are your 
neighbors, your co-workers, your friends, your parents.

Koon finally takes the MMMA to its ridiculous conclusion, undermining 
the Michigan electorate and stating very plainly that it is up to the 
Legislature, not the courts, to fix this hazy law.

So, for those of you fed up with watching patients being arrested, 
fired, kicked out of their housing and separated from their children, 
for those of you tired of watching law enforcement spend valuable 
time and your tax money flying helicopters over open fields and 
clogging the courts with nonviolent, victimless possession charges, 
and for those of you shaking your heads at the incredulous way your 
local and state elected representatives have utterly failed to 
represent you, there's a way to fix this. It's called a voting booth.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart