Pubdate: Thu, 10 Oct 2013
Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)
Copyright: 2013 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, Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?275 (Cannabis - Michigan)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - U.S.)

BATTLE OVER LOCAL BANS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA SET FOR MICHIGAN SUPREME COURT

The Michigan Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a landmark case today 
that will decide whether Michigan communities can bar medical 
marijuana within their borders and possibly whether Michiganders can 
keep using marijuana at all for health purposes.

Those joining forces against medical cannabis include the State Bar 
of Michigan and the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, 
both of which contend that the entire state act allowing medical 
marijuana should be thrown out.

Yet that would nullify the wishes of the 63% of Michigan voters who 
passed the act into law in 2008, according to opposing groups that 
include the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and the 
conservative Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.

Detroiter Tim Beck, 61, who for years has pushed to relax marijuana 
laws, said a handful of Michigan communities passed bans on medical 
marijuana "that carry serious penalties, and that includes jail 
time." The ordinances "didn't even mention medical marijuana -- they 
just said any activity that was illegal under federal law was also 
illegal in their community," Beck said.

In Wyoming, a Grand Rapids suburb of about 73,000 residents, retired 
attorney John Ter Beek sued in 2010 to overturn a medical cannabis 
ban. Ter Beek is a state-registered user who has diabetes and a 
painful neurological disorder, according to the lawsuit.

Ter Beek lost in a local court but won in the Michigan Court of 
Appeals. In April, the Michigan Supreme Court granted the city of 
Wyoming's request to appeal.

Wyoming's ban was followed by an almost identical ordinance in 
Livonia, which has filed a brief siding with Wyoming in the appeal, 
and by ordinances in Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills and Lyon Township. 
Ter Beek, who could not be reached this week for comment, said in 
2012 that he sued because he feared he would be arrested if he grew 
or used medical marijuana. That was after a state Appeals Court ruled 
3-0 in his favor.

"I've tried narcotic-based drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin, and 
nothing worked like medical marijuana," Ter Beek told the Free Press 
in a 2012 statement. "I just couldn't sit by as our elected officials 
try to ignore the will of the people and take this option from me and 
thousands of others."

The Court of Appeals ruling declared Wyoming's ordinance to be 
pre-empted by Michigan's medical marijuana act. It also said that 
local governments could not use federal drug laws as grounds for 
ignoring the state act.

"Congress can criminalize all uses of medical marijuana, (but) it 
cannot require the state to do the same," the court ruled. This year, 
federal authorities made plain that they will not block states from 
easing laws on marijuana for recreational and medical use.

Despite that, a brief supporting Wyoming filed by the Prosecuting 
Attorneys Association of Michigan argues that Michigan's medical 
marijuana act "stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and 
execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress and is 
therefore preempted." And the brief of the State Bar of Michigan's 
public corporation law section states in bold-faced type: "The 
supremacy clause of the United States Constitution applies ... to 
void" Michigan's marijuana act "in its entirety."

Also arguing in support of local ordinances that ban medical 
marijuana is the Michigan Municipal League, the Lansing-based lobby 
group for 524 cities, villages and townships across the state, 
according to the group's website. The League's brief says that 
Michigan municipalities should be free "to zone and regulate their 
own unique land use activities" in ways that ban medical marijuana.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom