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Law Michigan MMJ

Baron23 said:
Other communities, such as Detroit, Lansing, Flint, Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, allowed the pot shops to operate without police intervention. In Detroit, there are more than 70 shops that are operating that have either gone through or are completing the city’s approval process.
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The first part of this paragraph isn't completely accurate. Back in April, many of the dispensaries were closed down; especially in Detroit. Those that were left open are going through the approval/licensing process.

And I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that Bailey has a stake in this..... The Michigan State Police department hasn't exactly been on the up and up through this entire process. Look at the scandal with them falsifying lab reports.
 
Get to these meetings, @momofthegoons !! Get out there and make your voice heard. This isn't prudent administration, this is obstruction by bureaucratic fiat. I'm driving 80 miles each way to the next meeting of the MD commission (next Monday actually) cause if I'm dissatisfied, I need to show up and make my desires known. Go girl....whip them pussies...they like, ya' know? LOL


State medical marijuana board signals intent to shut down all dispensaries

EAST LANSING, MI - Medical marijuana dispensaries would need to cease operation by a date certain if they wanted to be eligible for licensure in the future, the chair of the Medical Marijuana Licensing Board signaled at a meeting on Monday.

"If we don't do this today we're going to do it somewhere in the future. Because it needs to be done," said Rick Johnson, who chairs the board.

The board ultimately postponed the motion, which came from board member Donald Bailey. He proposed that if dispensaries did not close by Sept. 15, they would not be eligible for licensure under the new dispensary licensing system that will be put in place on Dec. 15.

He pointed to a 2013 Michigan Supreme Court decision that pegged dispensaries as operating illegally.

"Every dispensary that's out there right now is open in violation of the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act," Bailey said.

The action was strongly opposed by medical marijuana patients.

Sue Molff, a patient from Traverse City, said she didn't appreciate the board talking about shutting down dispensaries. She said she depended on the concentrates she was only able to get at medical marijuana shops.

"What am I supposed to do during that time? Am I supposed to go back on the black market and get what I need?" She asked.

Until Monday's meeting, any changes to dispensaries were expected to happen in December, when a state law passed last year required a new licensing system to be implemented.




Senate moves to clear up legal haze around medical marijuana edibles, dispensaries

The Senate passed a package outside of its usual committee process.


Mark Gibson, a PhD candidate at Michigan State University, is also a medical marijuana patient with a degenerative bone disease. He asked the board to consider patient access.

"I ask in fairness, not talking about the businesses, but the patients, and ensuring that they have continuous access," Gibson said.

Joseph Smith, a caregiver, said he read the law and it mentioned patients and caregivers, not dispensaries.

"I would have loved to have had a sign and raked in some money. But the law wouldn't allow me to do it, so I didn't do it," he said.

Although he advocated keeping dispensaries open for the patients, he recommended a licensing process that had a point system benefitting people like him, who had followed the rules.

Tim Beck, who helped pass the initial voter-initiated medical marijuana legislation, accused the board of defecating on dispensaries. He said when he heard the rumors the board wanted to shut all dispensaries down, he initially dismissed them.

"This is an unprecedented action," Beck said.

The board ended up postponing the action after it became clear that, with one member absent, Bailey didn't have the votes to pass his proposal on Monday.

Jason Moon, a spokesperson for the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, which houses the Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation, said there would be a review if such a proposal did pass.

"The Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation will thoroughly review the recommendations and discussion from the board, and consult with the Attorney General's office before any action is taken," Moon said.

The board asked for input from LARA before they made a decision on requiring dispensaries to shut down.

Board member Vivan Pickard said she didn't feel she had the information she needed to make a decision at Monday's meeting.

The discussion took place at the board's second meeting. At the first, hundreds of people packed the room.
 
You should consider applying, @momofthegoons

Pot users, others sought to hash out marijuana rules
Lansing — The state is looking for individuals who use or don’t use pot to help hash out future medical marijuana regulations — potentially anybody.

The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs announced Tuesday that it’s searching for people to make suggestions on future rules for growers, processors, safety compliance facilities, provisioning centers and pot transporters. But it didn’t announce any specific criteria for expertise on the matter.

The state is inviting anyone interested to email LARA-MedicalMarihuana@michigan.gov with WORK GROUP in the subject line to be considered.

“We are interested in finding a group that represents diverse perspectives in order to gain insight into the core issues in the implementation of this new regulatory program,” said LARA spokesman Jason Moon. “We will analyze the potential participants with the intent to capture feedback from all these perspectives.”

The only other requirements are including a name, mailing and email addresses, a phone number, which work group the person wants to take part in and that person’s job title, employer or organization.

Those interested should include a pithy 150-word explanation about why they’re qualified to be part of the work group, according to the department. Don’t include any attachments. And make sure to send the email before 9 a.m. on Sept. 5.

LARA will announce work group members a week later on Sept. 12. The goal is to “seek input on the regulatory topics.”

Everyone who meets LARA’s requirements will be considered. But state officials stress that even people who aren’t selected can still get a chance to voice their opinions, concerns and analysis at public hearings.

“Regardless of participation in the work groups, all interested members of the public will be able to participate in the permanent rule-making process that includes public comment, hearing notices and draft rules that will be published for review and comment,” according to the department.

The announcement comes a day after a member of the state board that will make recommendations for new medical marijuana rules said he wants all existing dispensaries shuttered until official state licenses can be distributed.

The member – retired State Police sergeant David Bailey – also said he doesn’t think current dispensaries should receive legitimate permits to distribute medical marijuana because such shops have operated illegally, although the state legalized marijuana for medical use in 2008 by a voter referendum.

The state has not clamped down on medical marijuana dispensaries for the past nine years.

The board tabled the issue until LARA and the Attorney General’s Office can weigh in.
 
Just for you, @momofthegoons :buzz:

Why Michigan’s Marijuana Regulators Want to Shut the Pot Industry Down
Michigan’s medical marijuana industry has had a licensing authority—in this case, the Michigan Medical Marijuana Licensing Board—for less than three months. It took two meetings before the licensing board, in charge of overseeing and regulating the state’s cannabis landscape, suggested shutting it all down.

It was a good run. Every outlet offering cannabis for sale to licensed patients would be required to shut down, and shut down very soon, under a proposal from the board last week.

Medical marijuana has been legal in Michigan since 2008. Under state law, a caregiver is allowed to cultivate up to 72 marijuana plants—no more than 12 plants for no more than six patients.

But if you don’t have a caregiver?

Retail outlets offering cannabis in Michigan are technically illegal—and will be until the state starts issuing licenses, a development expected to come as soon as later this year—yet dispensaries have been operating with varying levels of transparency in select cities for years.

For most medical marijuana patients, for whom growing an adequate supply of cannabis is simply too challenging and specialized of a task to do on one’s own—we don’t expect people to grow all their own food or synthesize their own chemicals to make pharmaceutical drugs—a dispensary is the only way to access cannabis without patronizing the black market.

In most cities, dispensaries operate in a sort of gray market area with full knowledge of the police—and everything works out just fine.

In Detroit, there are more than 70 dispensaries offering marijuana for sale that have completed or at least started the city licensing process, according to the Detroit Free Press.

That’s not good enough for Donald Bailey. Bailey is a member of the Michigan licensing board. He’s also a retired Michigan State Police Trooper—and, apparently, he loves rules. Rigid, prescriptive rules, like the 2013 Michigan State Supreme Court decision that ruled dispensaries are violating state law.

“Every dispensary out there is open in violation of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act,” Bailey said during a recent board meeting, according to the Detroit Free Press. “It’s a felony for every sale that occurs from a dispensary.”

Bailey’s plan is to have every dispensary currently in business voluntarily shut down by Sept. 15. Dispensaries that don’t shut down won’t be able to acquire state licenses. At least one fellow board member signaled support for the scheme, which may come up for a vote as soon as September.

“If we don’t do this today we’re going to do it somewhere in the future,” said board chairman Rick Johnson, according to Mlive.com. “Because it needs to be done.”

The board is set to discuss Bailey’s innovative regulatory approach—if there is no industry to regulate, it’s pretty much already regulated, for good—at its third meeting, to be held sometime before Sept. 15. In the meantime, the state’s weed industry is reeling from the news.

“This is an unprecedented action,” said Tim Beck, one of the advocates behind the 2008 ballot initiative.

It’s also sadly predictable.

On the cover of the current issue of Michigan Medical Marijuana Report is a picture of Don Bailey.

“A guy that spent his entire career opposing marijuana is on the board,” as Frank James, one of the owners of AllWell Natural Health, an organization that used to operate as a dispensary in Gaylord, Michigan, told the local newspaper. “How do I argue with this?”

We say “used to operate as a dispensary” because AllWell, like most other dispensaries north of Flint, have shut down—voluntarily or otherwise—following a string of raids from Michigan State Police. That is, former colleagues and comrades of Bailey’s, who apparently share the same values.

According to the Petoskey News, James has begun telling his former patients to buy marijuana from the black market—because it’s safer.

Bailey is carrying water for his former police officers and for the likes of David Scott, the local supervisor in Commerce Township, a community that reportedly has 67 grow operations. Not outrageous, when you consider each cannot have more than 72 plants. But let’s assume they have a few more plants. Scott does.

“Knock off the crap that’s illegal and is nothing but organized crime,” he fumed at the licensing board’s most-recent meeting, encouraging them to stamp out that which they’re tasked with overseeing.

About that organized crime. Breaking the law is absolutely being encouraged in Michigan right about now.

Here’s the Petoskey News:

[Former dispensary operator Chad] Morrow said people have already begun planning black market seminars after the most recent dispensary raids.

“That’s not what anybody in Michigan wants,” he said. “That’s not what I want. I want regulation, and I want legalization.”

The notion that public safety is somehow imperiled by legal marijuana conduct is not entirely unsound. Fires could break out. People could get robbed. Authorities, including the police, can and should step in and help out.

Stamping out what legal industry there is, and guaranteeing marijuana’s return to the drug-dealer’s portfolio, accomplishes the opposite.
 
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FIGHTING A FELONY — AND MICHIGAN MARIJUANA LAWS
A WOMAN WHO SMOKED MARIJUANA 10 HOURS BEFORE A FATAL IS FACING A 15-YEAR FELONY


BY PATRICK SULLIVAN | AUG. 26, 2017

Scientific consensus increasingly recognizes there’s no way to determine the level of impairment in a driver who uses marijuana. So why is a woman who smoked marijuana 10 hours before an accident that killed her mother facing a 15-year felony for impaired driving? A Benzonia lawyer seeks to overturn the impracticable laws currently in place in Michigan.

Just as state officials set out to establish a measurement for marijuana impairment so that motorists can be held accountable for driving while high, state police have acknowledged — at least internally — that there’s actually no way to gauge the level of impairment due to marijuana.

A law passed late last year is supposed to establish a commission to develop a standard, but even before that commission holds its first meeting, it appears their mission might be futile.

Jeff Nye, assistant division commander and quality assurance manager for the MSP Forensic Science Division, asked a colleague to review literature on tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in pot, to help prepare the commission. What came back, according to an email, was discouraging.

The email was discovered by lawyers defending a woman facing a 15-year felony for driving while allegedly THC-impaired in a December 2016 crash in Grand Traverse County that killed her mother. They argue that the state’s marijuana laws are antiquated and arbitrary; they’ve turned to the state Court of Appeals to get those laws overturned.

NO SIMPLE ANSWER
The trouble lies in the inability to measure whether someone is stoned.
As the state police were preparing to take part in the state’s newly established Impaired Driving Commission, Nye acknowledged that inability in Jan. 27 email. Benzonia attorney Jesse Williams obtained the email through a Freedom of Information Act request.
“To put it in … simple and probably obvious terms … there’s no simple answer for a level of THC that causes impairment,” Nye had written in the email.

He had noted, too, that THC levels actually might be a meaningless barometer of intoxication.

“First, THC metabolizes very quickly in the body. So much so that a person that is not a routine user of marihuana showing impairment while operating a vehicle may have very low to non-detectable levels of THC within 2-3 hours. “On the opposite side of the spectrum, if you are a chronic user of marihuana there may be a fairly high level of THC in the bloodstream related to the release of reserves stored in fat tissue,” he wrote. “In other words, if you are a daily smoker and suddenly stop smoking, there may be significant levels that remain in the bloodstream for a month or more ... ”

Moreover, Nye wrote, chronic users might develop a tolerance to the drug so that the level of THC might not represent the same level of impairment that it would in a non-regular user.

Williams included the email in a motion to dismiss charges of “operating under the influence of a Schedule 1 controlled substance, causing death” filed against 40-year-old Bear Lake resident Jennifer Lyn Greenwood (pictured above).

THE SCENE OF THE CRASH
When Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Deputy Eric Meier arrived at the crash scene at 11am Dec. 10, he found a green Dodge Dakota on its left side, driver door down, and a black SUV, both in the middle of the road.

Meier exited his patrol car and had trouble staying upright as he walked along the slippery road. It was 19 degrees outside.

Meier checked on the driver of the SUV, who was okay, and then walked over to the Dodge, where firefighters had already removed the roof.

There were three women, “kind of piled up inside,” he testified at a hearing in May. One of the women, Greenwood’s mom, Victoria Laviola, was dead. Marissa Laviola, Greenwood’s daughter, had a broken leg. Greenwood was taken to Munson Medical Center with a broken ankle.

“If you can picture the chaos of a vehicle crashing, EMS, and everybody running around, people crying. My first responsibility is just let EMS do their job, and I’ll sort it out later, and that’s what happened,” Meier testified at Secretary of State hearing about the crash.

Investigators determined Greenwood had lost control on the snowy road, crossed the centerline, and crashed into the oncoming SUV, a Kia Sorento driven by an Interlochen man, Richard Robb.

Greenwood, her mom, and daughter had just been Christmas shopping in Traverse City and were headed home.

Robb had been heading back to Interlochen after muzzleloader hunting south of Empire. He was driving east on US-31 near Betsie River Road that morning, a Saturday, when a long line of cars approached from the opposite direction. One of them — he wasn’t sure if the Dodge was the second, third or fourth in line — slid into his lane.

At first he thought the car was attempting to make a quick turn into a driveway, and then he realized he had nowhere to go to avoid a collision.

“I just remember blue and then the white of my airbag,” he testified at Greenwood’s preliminary hearing. His car spun around and came to a stop, and Robb said that he just sat there stunned. Someone eventually knocked on his window and asked if he was okay; Robb gave a thumbs up, and the person went away.

VICTIM AND DEFENDANT
After the initial investigation, Meier went to Munson to talk to Greenwood, who was lying in a hospital bed.

“I remember her saying, ‘I just killed my mom,’ repeatedly,” Meier testified in the May hearing.

Greenwood told Meier that she had lost control on US-31, started to fishtail, overcorrected, and then crossed into opposing traffic.

Greenwood was checked for alcohol, and her breathalyzer came back negative. She hadn’t taken any prescription drugs. But she wanted to open up about having smoking marijuana, Meier testified.

“She said that she just wanted to be up front and cooperative, and she told me that she had smoked marijuana approximately 10 hours prior to the crash,” Meiers testified. “And that there was approximately an eighth of marijuana in a plastic baggy inside an empty glass cappuccino jar that was located — that she had put under her driver's seat.”

Meier hadn’t suspected drug use, but Greenwood admitted she’d smoked marijuana at around 1am the night before the crash. Greenwood’s blood was drawn and tested for THC.

Williams, Greenwood’s attorney, said Greenwood had suffered enough over the death of her mother and that the case amounts to prosecutorial overreach because there is no evidence that Greenwood was impaired when she crashed. She was travelling at 35mph in a 55 zone and lost control on ice, he said.

Williams refused to make Greenwood available for an interview because her charges are pending.

“The government is victimizing her in this case,” Williams said. “There was no sign of impairment or intoxication. They acknowledge it was an accident, and weather was the cause of it.”

CASE UNDER APPEAL
Greenwood was charged Jan. 18. By coincidence, another woman who had smoked marijuana before driving and caused a fatal crash on Dec. 10 in Grand Traverse County was charged with the same crime.

That woman, Abby Rose Miller, 19, of Grawn, pled guilty for the crash that killed 83-year-old Armond Worrell. She was sentenced to a year in jail after Worrell’s family asked for leniency. In that case, there was little doubt about whether Miller was impaired.

Williams took Greenwood’s case in another direction: He’s attempted to put Michigan’s marijuana policy on trial.

Greenwood entered a conditional guilty plea and was sentenced to six months in jail in July, but the plea and sentence are being held in abeyance while her case goes before the Court of Appeals. She may withdraw her plea of that court refuses to hear her case.

On appeal, Williams argues that the classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug is improper, and therefore, the state law that makes it illegal to drive with any amount of THC in a person’s system should be struck down.

He also argues that Michigan’s marijuana driving laws violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause because they treat recreational users of marijuana differently than medical marijuana users.

For recreational users, all the state has to do is show the presence of the drug in a person’s system in order to convict for impaired driving. For medical marijuana users, the state must prove the driver was impaired. Williams said that leads to unjust prosecutions.

“They’re only prosecuting her because they can, because the way the law is written,” he said.

POTENTIAL FOR ABUSE
Before the case went to the Court of Appeals, Williams and assistant prosecutor Christopher Tholen battled over those issue at a hearing in May before 13th Circuit Court Judge Thomas Power.

The first issue Williams raised was the state’s classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, which puts it in the same category as heroin, LSD, and cocaine.

Power noted that the law says that a substance should be classified Schedule 1 if it has a “high potential for abuse and has no accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, or lacks accepted safety for use in treatment under medical supervision.”

Power said he agreed with Williams that there’s no question that marijuana is being used for medical purposes.

However, the state uses different standards to determine whether a drug should be removed from Schedule 1 classification.

The state’s Board of Pharmacy administrator is supposed to consider a drug’s “relative potential for abuse” and the “potential of the substance to produce psychic or psychological dependence” before removing it from the list.

“Now, if those are the standards — those are pretty general. And you could make arguments under all of those about marijuana, couldn't you?” Power asked at the hearing. “I mean, actual or relative potential for abuse. There's — there's potential for abuse. We see people who abuse marijuana, don't we?”

Grand Traverse County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Cooney said he believes marijuana’s designation as a Schedule 1 drug is federal policy and is beyond the purview of county courts.

Anyway, he said, state legislators knew what they were doing when they made it illegal to drive with any Schedule 1 controlled substance in your system.

“They could have decided to exclude marijuana; they could have excluded other Schedule 1 drugs, but they chose not to,” he said.

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF DRUGS
Williams also failed to persuade Power that the state’s marijuana law violates the equal protection clause, but Power questioned whether it is good law.

Power said he believes it is possible to think of a drug in two ways and to treat different kinds of users differently. Opioids, for example, have that double life: They are sometimes obtained legally and used according to a prescription, and they are sometimes gotten illegally and abused.

“People — sometimes they get them by prescription for medical use, and sometimes they get them down at the Open Space and buy them illegally or steal them from somebody's medicine cabinet — that happens all the time,” Power said at the hearing. “And the nonmedical use — nonprescription use of those narcotic painkillers is treated differently than the use of narcotic painkillers pursuant to a prescription, isn't it?”

Frederik Stig-Nielson, a lawyer who was working with Williams at the hearing, argued that that’s the way the drugs are looked at under the Controlled Substance Act, but they should be viewed differently when it comes to the Motor Vehicle Code, because the purpose of that code is public safety.

“It is not any safer for a person who's been prescribed — or who has a certification and who's participated in the Michigan Medical Marijuana program — it's not any safer for that person to operate a motor vehicle than it is for someone who has not been certified,” Stig-Nielson argued.

Tholen argued that there’s a legitimate purpose for the government to distinguish between recreational and medical users. They do it to encourage safety on the roads, to get abusers into treatment, and to discourage illegal drug use.

Power wasn’t entirely persuaded.

“Okay. But if — if we're concerned about highway safety, which is a real reason for intoxicated driving laws — if we're concerned about highway safety, why is it safe for people to drive with substantial amounts of marijuana, but not enough to be intoxicated, in their system if they've got a medical marijuana card? That's OK. That's safe,” Power said.

Others, he said, would violate the law with “the presence of even a miniscule amount of active marijuana,” he said.

But Power ultimately rejected the motion, saying it was a matter for legislators to decide.

“It passes the rational basis test,” he said of the double standard. “Which is not to say it's fair, or it's right, or it's a good idea — those are all issues for the legislative process, not — not for a court.”

“THE ONLY SAFE LEVEL”
Cooney said he thought the equal protection argument is more difficult to rebut because Williams makes a good point about how Michigan has decided to treat different marijuana users differently.

“That’s a little bit more interesting argument,” Cooney said. “That’s the thing — it really doesn’t make much sense. Either it’s bad to have THC in your system and drive, or it’s not.”

The case that changed Michigan law and created a different standard for medical marijuana users came from Grand Traverse County — the People v. Rodney Koon — and, as that case wound through state courts between 2010 and 2013, Cooney fought to maintain a zero-tolerance standard even for medical marijuana users.
Cooney said the means for measuring medical marijuana intoxication are flawed.
“The reason the legislature said zero, that’s the only safe level, is because, the fact is … we don’t have good science to show what a safe level of marijuana is,” he said. “Some states set artificial limits, limits that, really, there is very little science to support.”

In the Koon case, Koon’s blood test showed 10 ng/mL of THC, but he had a medical marijuana card, and his charges were dismissed because Cooney determined he wouldn’t be able to prove impairment. In the Greenwood case, there is no evidence that she was impaired after the crash, and yet she faces a felony charge after her test revealed a THC level of 1 ng/mL.

Is it justice that Greenwood had one-tenth the level of THC that Koon did, showed no sign of impairment, and still faces a felony charge?

Cooney said the cases are different, and Greenwood was tested hours after the crash and might well have had a much higher level at the time of the crash. (Williams noted that no one has disputed Greenwood’s contention that she had smoked the night before the crash.)

Also, Cooney said, the cases are different. Koon was pulled over for speeding; Greenwood caused a crash that killed someone.

“What I do know in the Greenwood case is that she crossed the centerline, and she killed someone, and she seriously injured another person as a result of an error in driving,” Cooney said. “To simply state that, well, she was a one, and he was a 10 — that’s taking a lot of facts out of the equation.”

SOMETHING DIFFICULT TO MEASURE
The Impaired Driving Commission was supposed to be established by June, under the law that was enacted in March and gave Gov. Rick Snyder 90 days to name a forensics toxicologist, a physician, a state police representative, a medical marijuana patient, and two professors from different Michigan public research universities.
Snyder spokeswoman Tanya Baker said in an email: “No appointments have been announced yet. The time it takes to find and vet qualified candidates varies with each commission. In this case, the vetting process is nearing completion, and we expect to announce the appointments soon.”

Josh Hovey, spokesperson for the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the group behind an effort to get marijuana legalization on the November 2018 ballot, said his campaign supports a zero-tolerance approach to impaired driving. He said he hopes tests improve and one day will be able to actually show whether a person is under the influence or not.

“There should be better testing that can determine whether someone is impaired or not, similar to what we have for alcohol, but unfortunately the science isn’t there yet,” Hovey said.
 
Direct democracy in action....cause our legislatures certainly don't appear to be a hot bed of respect for democratic as seen in MA, FL and other states. Go get em, MI voters.


Marijuana legalization backers nearing petition drive goal

Backers of a ballot question to legalize recreational marijuana in Michigan are approaching a milestone.

Organizers say hundreds of petition circulators have been busy during the Labor Day holiday weekend collecting signatures.

Josh Hovey is the spokesman for the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol. He expects their petition drive will collect its quarter-millionth signature this week.

“We’re expecting based on the rate that we’ve been going that we should be finished hopefully a month ahead of schedule, if not a little earlier,” says Hovey.

The campaign needs 252,000 valid petition signatures to put the issue on the ballot. Petition drive organizers hope to collect more than 350,000 before November.

If enough valid signatures are collected, voters would decide in November 2018 whether to legalize recreational marijuana.
 
Future of Michigan medical marijuana dispensaries in the hands of licensing board
Kathleen Gray, Detroit Free Press Lansing BureauPublished 12:00 a.m. ET Sept. 10, 2017

Kirk Reid worries that a state licensing board will force him back into the shadows.

The Ann Arbor resident has been a medical marijuana card holder since 2009 and has been depending on pot dispensaries in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor to get the product that helps him deal with the multiple sclerosis that he was diagnosed with in 2004.

"It calms me down. It takes my pain away. Without it, I’d probably end up at the hospital or go to the black market," said Reid, 47. "And I really don’t look forward to having to go to high schools or college campuses to look for marijuana."

He may be without it in the near future if two members on the Michigan Medical Marijuana Licensing Board have their way. Board chairman Rick Johnson, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, and board member Don Bailey, a retired Michigan State Police officer, want to shut down dispensaries for the next few months until the board begins handing out licenses next year.

The move could leave hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries across the state shuttered and thousands of patients with no place to get the pot they use to help with a variety of ailments.

The Reef, a medical marijuana dispensary in Detroit, plans to close Monday, at least for the time being, as a pre-emptive strike.

Other dispensaries around the state are waiting and watching. Genevieve, the manager of the Third Coast caregiver center in Ypsilanti who declined to give her last name, said the impact could be harmful for the patients who use her shop.

"We're in good standing," she said about the permit the shop got from the city in 2009. "For a lot of people, we're within walking distance. A lot of people will be really devastated" if the state starts shutting down the dispensaries.

Even if the five-member board, which is to meet at noon on Tuesday in Bath Township, doesn’t shut down the dispensaries — the state is still reviewing whether it has the authority — it does have the power to grant or deny a license. And Bailey and Johnson have said that any business that continues to operate before state-sanctioned licenses are approved could be denied a license.

That’s an even bigger threat to dispensaries around the state. They might be able to survive shutting down for a few months, but will be out of business altogether if they can’t get a license.

“We’re shutting down on Monday because we want to show them that we’re trying to do the right thing,” said Tim Campbell, one of the owners of the Reef, the dispensary in Detroit where 11,000 people with medical marijuana cards get their weed, oils and edibles. “We’re trying, more than anything, to be compliant with the licensing board and LARA (the state Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Department)."

Other members of the board have expressed concern about how existing dispensaries should be handled as they develop rules for licensing in addition to the well-being of the patients who rely on dispensaries for their marijuana products.

The state's Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation, in conjunction with the state Attorney General's Office, is reviewing the prospect of shutting down currently operating dispensaries, said Jason Moon, a spokesman for LARA, and will make recommendations "on how to best implement any potential actions to ensure that patients are protected and the delivery of services to licensees are fair and efficient."

At the heart of the confusion is Michigan's medical marijuana law, which was approved by voters in 2008.

Under that law, caregivers are licensed by the state and can grow up to 12 plants for each of five patients who have state-approved medical marijuana cards. At the end of 2016 in Michigan, there were 218,556 people with medical marijuana cards and 38,107 caregivers.

In 2013, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the state's medical marijuana law did not allow for the cannabis to be bought or sold in shops, leading to law enforcement in some areas to shut down dispensaries. Other communities interpreted the ruling differently and said dispensaries in their towns were "caregiver centers" that were providing product to their patients.

Law enforcement, the state Legislature and local communities have been grappling with how to deal with medical marijuana and how it’s used, manufactured and sold. In one of the latest rulings by the Supreme Court on a medical marijuana case last year, the justices urged the Legislature to untangle the maze.

After several tries over four years, the Legislature finally approved bills in 2016 that regulate and tax medical marijuana. Communities can decide whether they want marijuana growers, processers, sales and transport businesses in their towns. Five categories of licenses were created under the new law, but applications for those licenses won't even be available until Dec. 15, and the licensing board won't start issuing licenses until sometime next year.

Michigan is one of 29 states that allow for medical marijuana, while marijuana is fully legal in eight states.

Caught in limbo are the dispensaries that operate in cities like Detroit, Ferndale, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Muskegon, Flint and other areas across the state.

At the last licensing board meeting last month, Bailey said he wants dispensaries to shut down. He believes they're operating illegally and will have an unfair leg up on the medical marijuana market once licenses begin to be issued.

"Every dispensary out there is in open violation of the act," he said. "In order to get a handle on this going forward, they have to be shut down right now. And for those anticipating getting into the business, nobody should have a 40-yard advantage."

In Detroit, corporation counsel Melvin Butch Hollowell said eight "caregiver centers" have gone through a rigorous licensing process and have been approved to operate by the city. Another 75 centers are in the application process and still operating, and 163 centers have been shut down because they haven't complied with city building and zoning ordinances.

"We have allowed for caregiver centers under the medical marijuana law, and you don't need a state license to be a caregiver center," Hollowell said. "We believe we have a responsible and rational basis for what we’re doing."

Ted Visner, a licensed caregiver and owner of QPS, a hobby farm in Pinconning that serves patients with medical marijuana cards, says he's compliant with the state law and wants to continue operating as he has been for the last nine years.

"I’m licensed by the state to assist qualified patients, and that’s what I’m doing. We don’t call ourself a dispensary. We’re a hobby farm," he said. "We don't want to be a commercial business."

But he does fear the commercialization of the medical marijuana business and the impact it might have on his small operation.

"These huge moneyed sources that are buying commercial real estate so they can grow a bazillion marijuana plants is going to change the landscape," Visner said.

Reid just wants the opportunity to continue to use the medical marijuana that has kept him out of the hospital and off opioids such as oxycontin.

"If it’s working for me, why would you want to take that away?" he said. "This is actually saving a lot of money because I’m not in the hospital all the time."

The dispensaries are the businesses that have taken all the risk to make it easier for patients to get their meds, he said, and should be protected.

"They are the pioneers. They should have the first go at a license," he said. "They're the ones who have had to worry for years about somebody coming in and kicking their doors down."

At the Reef, a temporary shutdown will be inconvenient, but not fatal.

"We’ll be able to survive, but most probably won’t," Campbell said. "The city put us through the wringer to get a license. And even though were one of only a few licensed in the city of Detroit, the state still looks at us as operating illegally."

The Michigan Medical Marijuana Licensing Board meeting begins at noon Tuesday at the Eagle Eye Banquet Center in Bath Township. It is open to the public.

 
Next Licensing Board meeting is Tuesday, September 12 at noon, Hawk Hollow Golf Course, Bath Township

by Rick Thompson/September 11, 2017

LANSING– On the eve of a meeting where the shutdown of all medical marijuana distribution centers could be decided, new numbers on Michigan’s Medical Marihuana Program reveal a catastrophic consequence to that decision.

Recent reports have updated the number of registered patients, caregivers and patients who use caregivers in Michigan. There are currently 262,000 patients registered in the Michigan Medical Marihuana Program (MMP), making it the second largest patient population in the nation, behind only California.

In a personal communication with the Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation, there are approx. 43,000 persons in Michigan who are registered as caregivers, and they serve approx. 95,000 patients.

That means approx. 167,000 people in the state of Michigan use the current dispensary industry to supply their medical needs, or they cultivate cannabis for themselves, or both. A proposed dispensary shutdown would strand those patients without a stable supply of cannabis to satisfy their medicinal needs, which could lead to failing health in patients and a resurgence in Michigan’s black market for marijuana.

The new Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act (MMFLA) was passed by the legislature in 2016 to establish a regulated and taxed medical cannabis production, processing, testing and distribution industry. That industry already exists in Michigan, with processors and testing labs and distribution centers located across the state, operating in support of those 262,000 patients with local approval or tolerance but without state authority.

Applications for those newly-created MMFLA business licenses begins on December 15, with approvals anticipated in the first quarter of 2018.

On Tuesday, September 12, a Licensing Board for the MMFLA will debate for a third time their desire to scrape the state clean of any vestiges of this current industry, scorching the earth in preparation for the new industry to launch in 2018.

“Under the best circumstances, cannabis takes about 4 – 6 months to grow from seed to harvest,” said Jamie Lowell of the Michigan Marijuana Law Experts. Those first quarter of 2018 license awardees will not be able to produce cannabis for the new industry until mid- to late-summer of 2018. “Even those who grow for their own patient needs often use dispensaries to maintain their medical treatments in those times between harvests.”

Caregivers use dispensaries to obtain the starter plants needed to begin a new crop for their patients and to obtain cannabis for their patients between harvests; so do patients who have already assigned a caregiver but whose medical needs are more immediate than their caregiver can provide for. All 262,000 patients cultivating on their own or with a caregiver would potentially be impacted if distribution centers as they currently exist were suddenly eliminated, Lowell clarified.

Bailey’s Bad Math
Michigan law allows patients to possess just 2.5 ounces at a time, meaning they cannot legally stockpile large quantities of cannabis to tide them over between cultivation events.

During the last meeting of the Licensing Board, former MSP Sergeant and Board member Don Bailey provided some fuzzy math regarding caregiver production and the amount of marijuana available in the state to satisfy patient needs.

Bailey is pushing for the statewide dispensary shutdown, along with Board chairman Rick Johnson. His cannabis production and consumption numbers were put on public record to dismiss the notion that patients would not be able to maintain their medical marijuana treatments in a dispensary-free Michigan for six months. Caregivers produce enough marijuana to satisfy the entire state, Bailey hammered home, and dispensaries are not needed. He hypothesized that all caregivers grow on behalf of 5 patients and themselves, and that each caregiver grew 72 plants which each yielded one pound of useable marijuana.

At that production level, Michigan’s medical needs for cannabis are already satisfied, Bailey told the Board and the audience.

Don Bailey’s plan assumed a cannabis production scenario where caregivers were providing for more than 200,000 patients, based on the mathematics numbers he provided during public testimony.

Bailey’s logic failed on three counts. First, the yields and consumption levels he cited are nonsensical in the modern world of cannabis cultivation, according to industry experts. Second, the actual number of patients serviced by caregivers is less than 100,000, meaning his projection on the amount of cannabis being produced by the MMP is more than double the actual number.

Third, and most important, the notion that caregivers generate enough marijuana to supply everyone without dispensaries fails to recognize that transferring cannabis to a person to whom you are not directly connected is a crime by Bailey’s own stated definition. The former MSP sergeant’s proposal to spread that pot around to random patients across the state would require people to criminalize their behavior just to maintain their medical treatments.

The fact that a law enforcement official would propose a system of marijuana supply, which is predicated on mass criminal acts, should cause all to question Mr. Bailey’s current suggestion, his future proposals, and his continued presence on the Board.


 
momofthegoons said:
Next Licensing Board meeting is Tuesday, September 12 at noon, Hawk Hollow Golf Course, Bath Township

by Rick Thompson/September 11, 2017

LANSING– On the eve of a meeting where the shutdown of all medical marijuana distribution centers could be decided, new numbers on Michigan’s Medical Marihuana Program reveal a catastrophic consequence to that decision.

Recent reports have updated the number of registered patients, caregivers and patients who use caregivers in Michigan. There are currently 262,000 patients registered in the Michigan Medical Marihuana Program (MMP), making it the second largest patient population in the nation, behind only California.

In a personal communication with the Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation, there are approx. 43,000 persons in Michigan who are registered as caregivers, and they serve approx. 95,000 patients.

That means approx. 167,000 people in the state of Michigan use the current dispensary industry to supply their medical needs, or they cultivate cannabis for themselves, or both. A proposed dispensary shutdown would strand those patients without a stable supply of cannabis to satisfy their medicinal needs, which could lead to failing health in patients and a resurgence in Michigan’s black market for marijuana.

The new Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act (MMFLA) was passed by the legislature in 2016 to establish a regulated and taxed medical cannabis production, processing, testing and distribution industry. That industry already exists in Michigan, with processors and testing labs and distribution centers located across the state, operating in support of those 262,000 patients with local approval or tolerance but without state authority.

Applications for those newly-created MMFLA business licenses begins on December 15, with approvals anticipated in the first quarter of 2018.

On Tuesday, September 12, a Licensing Board for the MMFLA will debate for a third time their desire to scrape the state clean of any vestiges of this current industry, scorching the earth in preparation for the new industry to launch in 2018.

“Under the best circumstances, cannabis takes about 4 – 6 months to grow from seed to harvest,” said Jamie Lowell of the Michigan Marijuana Law Experts. Those first quarter of 2018 license awardees will not be able to produce cannabis for the new industry until mid- to late-summer of 2018. “Even those who grow for their own patient needs often use dispensaries to maintain their medical treatments in those times between harvests.”

Caregivers use dispensaries to obtain the starter plants needed to begin a new crop for their patients and to obtain cannabis for their patients between harvests; so do patients who have already assigned a caregiver but whose medical needs are more immediate than their caregiver can provide for. All 262,000 patients cultivating on their own or with a caregiver would potentially be impacted if distribution centers as they currently exist were suddenly eliminated, Lowell clarified.

Bailey’s Bad Math
Michigan law allows patients to possess just 2.5 ounces at a time, meaning they cannot legally stockpile large quantities of cannabis to tide them over between cultivation events.

During the last meeting of the Licensing Board, former MSP Sergeant and Board member Don Bailey provided some fuzzy math regarding caregiver production and the amount of marijuana available in the state to satisfy patient needs.

Bailey is pushing for the statewide dispensary shutdown, along with Board chairman Rick Johnson. His cannabis production and consumption numbers were put on public record to dismiss the notion that patients would not be able to maintain their medical marijuana treatments in a dispensary-free Michigan for six months. Caregivers produce enough marijuana to satisfy the entire state, Bailey hammered home, and dispensaries are not needed. He hypothesized that all caregivers grow on behalf of 5 patients and themselves, and that each caregiver grew 72 plants which each yielded one pound of useable marijuana.

At that production level, Michigan’s medical needs for cannabis are already satisfied, Bailey told the Board and the audience.

Don Bailey’s plan assumed a cannabis production scenario where caregivers were providing for more than 200,000 patients, based on the mathematics numbers he provided during public testimony.

Bailey’s logic failed on three counts. First, the yields and consumption levels he cited are nonsensical in the modern world of cannabis cultivation, according to industry experts. Second, the actual number of patients serviced by caregivers is less than 100,000, meaning his projection on the amount of cannabis being produced by the MMP is more than double the actual number.

Third, and most important, the notion that caregivers generate enough marijuana to supply everyone without dispensaries fails to recognize that transferring cannabis to a person to whom you are not directly connected is a crime by Bailey’s own stated definition. The former MSP sergeant’s proposal to spread that pot around to random patients across the state would require people to criminalize their behavior just to maintain their medical treatments.

The fact that a law enforcement official would propose a system of marijuana supply, which is predicated on mass criminal acts, should cause all to question Mr. Bailey’s current suggestion, his future proposals, and his continued presence on the Board.
Click to expand...
You got some real asshole, drug cold warriors on that Licensing Board, that is for certain. So, where is your Governor and state representatives in all of this. I should think that approx 300K viciously complaining people could make even a modern American politician listen, no?
 
Baron23 said:
I should think that approx 300K viciously complaining people could make even a modern American politician listen, no?
Click to expand...
One would think. However the last time they had more than that in signatures and were thwarted in turning them in. This time they're going after the folk who are financing the push for legalization.

We'll see. :hmm:
 
LARA to Inform Medical Marihuana Licensing Board Regarding Existing Facilities, License Fees
Emergency rules to be submitted to protect patients and to implement fair and efficient regulations

Media Contact: LARA Communications 517-373-9280
Email: www.michigan.gov/medicalmarihuana. More information on the BMMR can be found at the bureau’s website: www.michigan.gov/bmmr.

September 12, 2017 - At a meeting of the Medical Marihuana Licensing Board later today, the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) will inform the board members regarding several oversight issues and the implementation of the regulatory framework for the new Medical Marihuana Facility Licensing Act (MMFLA). LARA, in consultation with the board, has sole authority to promulgate rules and emergency rules as necessary to implement, administer, and enforce the MMFLA.

LARA will notify the board of its intent to submit emergency rules necessary for the initial implementation of the MMFLA. The emergency rules – expected to be submitted in November – will further establish regulatory policies, including the application and licensing process and the fee structure. LARA is currently working with the board to develop permanent rules.

Existing Facilities

LARA consulted with the Michigan Attorney General’s office regarding facilities and dispensaries currently in operation and determined that any regulatory action will require an administrative rule. The department’s intent for the emergency rules is to consider any operation of a facility – that would otherwise need to be licensed under the MMFLA – as a potential impediment to licensure if continued after December 15, 2017. LARA will begin accepting license applications for all facilities on that date. This applies to all facilities defined under MMFLA. This approach will allow existing operations to wind down while also giving adequate time for patients to establish connections to caregivers to help ensure continuity of access.

Fee Structure

MMFLA requires LARA, in consultation with the board, to set the application fee and the annual regulatory assessment for each license. LARA will notify the board of its intent to submit emergency rules related to the following fee structure:

  1. The Application Fee is non-refundable and offsets the cost for LARA, the Michigan State Police (MSP), and/or contract costs for investigative services in order to conduct the background investigation of those applying for licenses. The nonrefundable application fee – which must be submitted with the application – will likely be in the $4,000 to $8,000 range, depending on the number of applications received.
  2. The annual Regulatory Assessment offsets operational costs and other statutory mandates including LARA’s costs to implement the act. It also offsets the cost of medical-marihuana-related services provided to LARA by the Michigan Attorney General’s office, MSP, and the Dept. of Treasury. By statute, the assessment must also provide $500,000 annually to LARA for licensing substance abuse disorder programs in addition to five percent of other state departments’ costs to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for substance abuse-related expenses.
LARA is currently determining the annual regulatory assessment for fiscal year 2018 for each of the five license categories authorized by MMFLA. Grower A licenses are capped, by statute, at $10,000. Grower B-C, Processor, Transporter, and Provisioning Center licenses will be dependent on the number of total licenses subject to assessment and could be as low as $10,000 or as high as $57,000. The regulatory assessment does not apply to safety compliance facilities.

Future Board Meetings

The Medical Marihuana Licensing Board is scheduled to meet in regular session on October 17, 2017 and November 28, 2017. Both meetings will begin at 1:30pm and will be held at the Big Ten Conference Room A in the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center at 219 South Harrison Road in East Lansing, MI. Streaming service for both meetings will be available through the website at www.michigan.gov/medicalmarihuana. More information on the BMMR can be found at the bureau’s website: www.michigan.gov/bmmr.

For more information about LARA, please visit www.michigan.gov/lara

Sounds to me like they may not be closing the dispensaries this week if we can go by LARA's timeline of, "The department’s intent for the emergency rules is to consider any operation of a facility – that would otherwise need to be licensed under the MMFLA – as a potential impediment to licensure if continued after December 15, 2017." Good news for patients if true. However if license applications are only starting then it will be a while before they are up and running with product again.
 
hey @momofthegoons , you not only poaching on my topic territory (jk LOL) but you are stealing my comment color of yellow. What the heck? LOL :rofl:

Yeah, the way I read it is that 15 Dec is the date they START to accept applicaitions which must be processed, licenses issued, and then facilities stood up and opened. Also, if existing dispensaries operate past 15 Dec without a new license (which they cannot yet get) then they will be at a disadvantage for such a license.

So, Dec 15th they shut down the entire dispensary population (unless you want to kill your chances at a new license) and, as you pointed out, new ones may not be open again for months after that.

My two thoughts are; 1) SCREAM at your local representatives. FUCK these faceless bureaucrats in the LARA and; 2) stock up cause you may be out of operation for a while.

This is really fucked up. Don't these guys have a calendar? Can't they see that they are creating a gap. Be ok if new license apps accepted starting 15 Dec and any dispensaries who do not obtain a new license by....say May or Jun....will need to close. Provide some overlap from old system to new.

Incompetent and uncaring Government at work once again.
 
This crap absolutely should be turned into a political bloodbath for those attempting to close all dispensaries. Need News at 11 video of epileptic kids having seizures, cancer chemo patients throwing up, MS patients so bound by muscles tremors that they can't move, veterans who can't sleep and are suicidal from their PSTD, chronic pain patients narc'd out of their mind as addictive pharma is the only other option, etc, etc, etc.

Activists in MI, this shithead Bailey is giving you a LOT of ammunition.


Michigan’s Dumb and Damaging Plan to Regulate Marijuana by Shutting It Down Goes Forward

Michigan will, in all likelihood, become the next state to legalize marijuana for adults, if a highly popular ballot measure for the November 2018 election is approved by voters. If polling and results from other states are any indication—and, generally speaking, such metrics are—in a little less than 18 months time, anyone aged 21 or over will be able to stroll into a commercial storefront in Detroit and purchase cannabis, just like they can do in Las Vegas, Denver, Seattle and Portland.

To prepare for this brave and exciting new future, a state board in charge of medical marijuana—which sick people in Michigan have enjoyed in fits and starts since 2008, despite constant and often vociferous opposition from law enforcement and key elected officials—is moving to shut down all commercial cannabis sales altogether for as long as six months.

Confused?

Us, too. And yet, eliminating the state’s ersatz commercial cannabis market has been the main focus of the state’s Medical Marihuana Licensing Board since it began meeting in August.

To back up slightly: Michigan’s 2008 medical marijuana law allows cannabis patients to cultivate plants for themselves or for others under the caregiver system. But if a patient can’t grow for themselves and doesn’t know a caregiver, finding cannabis can be impossible. (Maybe that was the idea.)

To fill this obvious gap, caregivers have opened up dispensaries, storefronts or private clubs, operating with varying levels of discretion depending on where they’re located.

Although a 2013 Michigan state Supreme Court decision has declared these weed stores illegal, there are as many as 77 dispensaries in Detroit, where law enforcement has better things to do. And there are none in nearby jurisdictions, where apparently there’s no other crime to worry about.

Michigan recently revamped its marijuana rules and plans to start issuing state licenses to dispensaries sometime next year. But before that can happen, the licensing board wants all dispensaries to c;lose.

One of the licensing board’s members, Donald Bailey, is a recently retired member of the Michigan State Police, which has proven willing to do anything—including falsifying lab reports—to shut down the state’s legal cannabis industry.

Yes, Bailey was a former drug cop. And yes, he’s now in charge of marijuana—the equivalent of putting a militant vegan in charge of a slaughterhouse. See how that goes.

Bailey’s first order of business as a cannabis regulator was to get the state’s dispensaries to shut down by September 15, citing the state Supreme Court decision. That was outrageous—although we can appreciate the genius of clearing up plenty of time for golf by having nothing to regulate—and so his colleagues on the board settled for December 15 instead.

That’s the date when the state will start accepting applications to legally run a dispensary, meaning that the state’s medical marijuana patients will go at least a few months—perhaps many more—without any place to reliably obtain cannabis.

Michigan dispensaries are on notice to close down by that date or risk not being able to receive a state license later. This “will allow existing operations to wind down while also giving adequate time for patients to establish connections to caregivers to help ensure continuity of access,” the state said in a press release.

This didn’t satisfy Bailey—he still believes a dispensary needs to close down by this week in order to receive his support, he huffed to the Detroit Free Press—and it absolutely doesn’t satisfy Michigan’s marijuana patients and providers.

“Even if the licenses are handed out on the 15th (the first day businesses can apply), you’re not gonna get a license on the 15th and then on the 16th be open for business,” Roberta King, co-owner of Canna Communication, told the Metro Times. “So this will still be harmful to patients who rely on cannabis for their health and well being, and it will be harmful for businesses.”

At least one lawmaker is working to solve this solution in search of a problem.

State Rep. Yousef Rabhi introduced a bill that would allow dispensaries to stay open while their applications were pending.

“Small businesses can’t afford to be shut down for months by unnecessary bureaucratic procedures,” he said in a statement.

And there it is.

The Supreme Court identified no real problem with having the dispensaries open. Nor have the Michigan State Police, beyond the logic of declaring them illegal and therefore in need of closure. Try to find an analog example in another industry.

Bailey and other weed haters have stated that dispensaries fuel the black market, an absurd suggestion that comes apart at the slightest examination. Cartels typically don’t bother securing licenses and paying taxes.

If Rabhi can’t save the state’s cannabis market, military veterans might.

At least a few dispensaries plan to defy Bailey and the shutdown order. One of them is Nathan Oakes, who runs Greener Crossing, one of Detroit’s marijuana outlets. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Oakes says 2,500 of his 8,000 patients are fellow military veterans—whom he plans to organize in an effort to keep the state’s weed stores open while the licensing issue can be worked out.

“We want to provide uninterrupted access to patients,” he told the Free Press. “We’re a large and strong political voice.”

Will hardliners like Bailey and his friends on the thin blue line be able to look military veterans in the eye and tell them to kick sand?

If so, everyone will know this isn’t about regulating an industry or helping people anymore, but clutching to a dying way of life—that is, treating cannabis like a matter of national security—that’ll be ancient history in a little more than a year.
 
Baron23 said:
State Rep. Yousef Rabhi introduced a bill that would allow dispensaries to stay open while their applications were pending.
Click to expand...
Rabhi: Protect Medical Marijuana Businesses, Patients from Regulatory Overreach
Bill would allow existing businesses to apply for licensure without shutting down

Tuesday, September 12, 2017
LANSING — State Rep. Yousef Rabhi (D-Ann Arbor) announced a bill today to prevent existing medical marijuana dispensaries from being shut down by licensing delays. Last year, the Legislature passed bills to license medical marijuana businesses such as processors and dispensaries and to give local governments control over whether to allow such licensed facilities to operate in their municipalities. However, the bills did not specify a process for licensing medical marijuana businesses that are already established. The Medical Marihuana Licensing Board said today that existing businesses must close by Dec. 15 if they want to seek licensure. Because license applications will not be accepted before that date, businesses will be forced to shut down for an indefinite period while they wait for their applications to be processed.

“These businesses are caring for hundreds of patients and have invested in our communities by buying equipment, developing facilities, and training workers,” Rep. Rabhi said. “They should have a chance to show that they meet the licensing requirements without being penalized for investments they made before the licensure legislation was passed. Small businesses can’t afford to be shut down for months by unnecessary bureaucratic procedures.”

Rep. Rabhi’s bill would establish a timeframe for processing the license applications of existing medical marijuana businesses, and would allow existing businesses to continue operating while their applications are processed. Otherwise, all of the licensure requirements would remain the same. The bill also clarifies that current businesses who apply before February will not be barred from licensure solely on account of having operated without a municipal enabling ordinance before this became a requirement. Municipalities would retain their control over whether to allow licensed medical marijuana facilities.

“Shutting down responsible and beneficial businesses before they have the chance to apply runs counter to the goal of providing reasonable guidelines for medical marijuana businesses,” Rep. Rabhi said. “My bill provides a path for existing businesses to become licensed. Communities will have a choice of allowing medical marijuana businesses to operate or not, and many communities want to see these jobs and small businesses protected.”

Rep. Rabhi is continuing to seek legislative co-sponsors for the bill, which he plans to introduce on Thursday.


As if Bailey wasn't enough... our Attorney General, Bill Schuette has just announced his run for governor in 2018. And he is dead set against MMJ. Gotta make sure he doesn't make it to that position folks..... My only hope is that they don't find a way to thwart the petitions for recreation legalization again this year. Cause if that's on the ballot I think it will bring a lot of people out to vote that normally wouldn't. And if that is the case, Bill Schuette's chances are much slimmer.

 
Warning Issued to Existing Businesses in Pre-Meeting Press Release from LARA

by Rick Thompson/September 14, 2017

LANSING- The Licensing Board for the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act (MMFLA) met for the third time on September 12. The much-anticipated Board meeting followed a highly controversial meeting one month prior where the discussion about a shutdown of all cannabis-related businesses across the state was hotly debated and discussed.

During the September 12 meeting the Director of the Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation, Andrew Brisbo, told the crowd that the BMMR is not ordering a shutdown of the facilities but is instead issuing an advisory to all potential applicants for MMFLA businesses.

The MMFLA will license cultivation, processing, testing, transport and distribution operation for Michigan’s Medical Marihuana Program (MMP), which services over 262,000 registered patients. Those industries currently exist in the state as unregistered entities.

The Brisbo warning was issued to those unregistered current entities which may want to gain state licensure under the MMFLA program. The BMMR and their parent Department, Michigan’s Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), will begin accepting applications for the MMFLA program on December 15th.

That is also the date cited by Brisbo: any applicant who currently operates a business in one of the five categories must abandon that business by December 15 or their ability to secure a state-issued license will be “significantly impacted.”

Although this stipulation was labeled as overly harsh by the majority of Michigan citizens testifying during the public comment portion of the meeting, at least one man was angry that the regulation did not go into effect earlier and that the Brisbo statement was not more definitive in it’s declaration of discrimination.

Former Michigan State Police sergeant Don Bailey, a Board member, had originally proposed the statewide shutdown at a previous Board meeting. Based on discussions at the August meeting and the agenda for the September 12th meeting, the issue appeared to be ready for renewed discussion and a Board vote.

LARA and the BMMR preempted that vote and almost completely eliminated the Board debate on the subject by issuing a press release just hours prior to the September 12th meeting. That press release declared the December 15th date and established the danger to businesses of continuing operation after then as a “significant impediment” to gaining a license.

Bailey had argued previously in favor of a September 15th date for a total statewide mandated shutdown, and that failure to comply would absolutely result in a loss of applicant status. Director Brisbo said his department had consulted with the Attorney General’s office and this was the decision they had arrived at. Bailey’s weak objections were given little attention and made no change to the policy outlined in the press release.

Many attendees had significant comments regarding the December 15th date, the length of time many patients would be without medicinal cannabis, and what they described as an inhumane attitude toward the continuing needs of the state’s most ill and injured.

The full video of the September 12th meeting can be seen at:

MMFLA Licensing Board September 12th Meeting Video
 
Sigh.....:doh: @Baron23 you're gonna love this one... While not a news article it does shed some light on what is going on behind the scenes.

CRONYISM, MICHIGAN POLITICS, OPINION, REPUBLICANS
Gary Glenn Turns Back On Decentralization, Targets Medical Marijuana Industry Approved By Voters


by shane Trejo • September 15, 2017
gary-Glenn-gay-STD.jpg


Rep. Gary Glenn (R-Midland) was seen as one of the shining stars of the tea party movement, and was finally elected to public office after several attempts back in 2012. We all had high hopes for him, but as he ascended into a leadership position, he immediately wilted like so many others.

This becomes incredibly obvious when examining the text of HB4965, a bill designed to punish cities that choose to allow medical marijuana dispensaries. It would cut them off from state funds if their town votes to permit dispensaries within city limits. This is a sinister way to rob localities of their sovereignty as well as an anti-free market measure to punish a growing industry creating more jobs in a state that desperately needs them.

It reads as follows:

THE STATE TREASURER SHALL WITHHOLD ALL OR ANY PART OF ANY PAYMENT THAT A CITY, VILLAGE, TOWNSHIP, OR COUNTY IS ELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE UNDER THIS ACT IF THE CITY, VILLAGE, TOWNSHIP, OR COUNTY ADOPTS A MEDICAL MARIHUANA ORDINANCE.


Perhaps Glenn is so old and out of touch that he still believes in reefer madness propaganda, but that is unlikely. Glenn is a learned man who has even indicated some tepid support for medical marijuana in the past. This is a clear case of a sell-out politician desperate to kiss up to Attorney General Bill Schuette, the scum-sucking stooge who targeted small farmers and medical marijuana patients during his disgraceful term as Dick Snyder’s top henchman.

Glenn also introduced a bill during the previous legislative session that would effectively criminalize protests against the political class. This bill was filed convienently after Schuette was besmirched after protesters lined up outside of his mansion to protest his awful policies. While I was willing to give Glenn the benefit of the doubt after this shameful maneuever, it is clear that his ambitions have taken precedence over his principles. He has become another victim of the swamp.

And call me crazy, but I see HB4965 moving much more quickly through the legislature than HB4192.

HB4192 is the active bill introduced by Glenn that was written to remove the state of Michigan from the Common Core educational standards. It was developed by grassroots leaders using the best language recommended by national experts that would fully terminate Common Core in the state and allow Lansing bureaucrats NO WIGGLE ROOM to re-implement the standards, which has happened in many other states such as Indiana, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Glenn introduced that bill earlier this year, and it was scheduled to the Michigan Competitiveness Committee. This committee, initially chaired by House Pro Tem Rep. Lee Chatfield, seemed to be a good landing spot for the bill but it has stalled completely. After multiple committee hearings, there has been no movement. Right now, shady legislators are working under the cloak of darkness on a ‘compromise’ bill that would allow aspects of Common Core to remain in place.

For those of you who put your trust in Gary Glenn, please understand that you have been deceived. Few men have what it takes to stand strong in the midst of the unbelievable corruption within our politics. Glenn is clearly not among them, but his lack of spine may land him that next role as he progresses up the latter amassing power. A man who dreams of being a political figure for many decades usually turns out to be a snake. Glenn is no exception.


 
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