Pubdate: Tue, 11 Sep 2012
Source: Muskegon Chronicle, The (MI)
Copyright: 2012 The Muskegon Chronicle
Contact: http://www.mlive.com/mailforms/muchronicle/letters/index.ssf
Website: http://www.mlive.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1605
Author: Tim Skubick

WOULD YOU VOTE AGAIN FOR THE MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW IF YOU HAD A CHANCE?

If You Voted Again, Would the Results Be Any Different?

Sen. Rick Jones (R-Grand Ledge) is thinking the answer is a 
resounding yes and if he is right, you can say adios to Michigan's 
Medical Marijuana law approved by over 60 percent of the voters when 
it was on the ballot.

Since that overwhelming yes vote, the law has been battered and 
bruised. First the local prosecutors had a field day, replicating the 
good ole days of Elliot Ness when he swash-buckled his way into every 
illegal speak-easy in the Midwest.

These modern day Ness types raided marijuana dispensaries, grabbed 
all the grass and arrested a few folks, just to send a message. And 
generally they scared the you-know-what out of the legitimate 
customers who needed pain relief from all the raids.

The courts got into the act and attacked the law even more. State 
Attorney General Bill Schuette loved it since he led the charge to 
kill the ballot proposal in the first place.

Lawmakers are now moving to button-up the law, which was poorly written.

But the aforementioned Mr. Jones thinks the state needs to go a step further.

Not this year but next, the former sheriff may ask his colleagues for a re-do.

"Perhaps it should go back on the ballot...I would like to see that 
in the future," he says.

He believes the electorate was "schnookered" when it voted the first 
time, as it envisioned grandma and grandpa heading down to the drug 
store for some pain relief via a small hit of grass. Instead, he 
argues, teenagers ended up buying grass at stores just blocks away 
from the school playground. "This is a bad law," he asserts.

But there is a political risk in a re-do: Some of the 130,000 or so 
who have grass cards really do need the pain relief and they might be 
upset enough to vote lawmakers out of a job if they monkey with the law.

However, if this got on the 2013 ballot, that is a non-election year 
and politicians would not be nearly as afraid to do it then. And if 
Mr. Jones has his way, they just might.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom