Pubdate: Sun, 03 Nov 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.)

HOUSE BILL WOULD ALLOW POT IN FOOD AND LOTIONS

What has been a standing joke in decades of comedy movies and college 
parties -- marijuana brownies -- became a serious matter to state 
Rep. Eileen Kowall when a family came to her with their sick child.

The meeting led Kowall, R-White Lake, to introduce a bill last week 
that, in effect, makes marijuana brownies and other non-smoked forms 
of the drug legal medicine in Michigan.

"People joke about marijuana brownies but this (subject) came to my 
attention recently when some families with sick children called me," 
Kowall said. The families were upset by a Michigan Court of Appeals 
ruling in September that said smoking cannabis was virtually the only 
legal means for using the drug, she said.

The decision stemmed from the case of a man, arrested while driving 
in Beverly Hills in 2011, who had in the back of his car brownies 
containing marijuana extract. It sent shock waves through Michigan's 
community of more than 100,000 state-approved medical marijuana 
patients, many of whom rely on "medibles" -- the nickname for health 
foods and extracts made of marijuana, according to groups such as 
Southgate-based Michigan Compassion.

And it put the parents of pediatric users in a corner, unable to 
legally administer the drug in lozenges or via vaporizers that are 
less irritating than smoke to young lungs, Kowall said.

The ruling also posed a problem for adult users of medical marijuana 
such as Pamela Brown, 57, of Riverview. The idea of smoking anything 
repels Brown but medical marijuana in other forms has been a godsend, 
allowing her to stop taking blood-pressure medicine and pain pills 
for her back pain, she said.

"I juice it and I also make a lotion that I rub on my joints," Brown said.

"It's sadly ironic that the people who need this medicine the most 
are the ones most affected by this bad court decision," said Detroit 
lawyer Matt Abel, executive director of Michigan NORML, a group that 
seeks to legalize marijuana in Michigan.

House Bill 5104 would add the words "plant resin or extract" to the 
definition of usable marijuana in Michigan's medical marijuana act.

And, in deciding whether a patient was within the legal limit of 2.5 
ounces that state-approved users can possess, the law would no longer 
let police, prosecutors and judges count the weight of brownies, pop, 
lotion base, candy "or any inactive substance used as a delivery 
medium" against the limit, according to the bill's language.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom