Pot plants grow legally one year after vote

By Josh Kalil
Western Herald

Photo courtesy of Joe, caregiver

Next time the smell of marijuana floats in the air, it may not be illegal anymore. Michigan is budding medical marijuana meant to help people find other ways of dealing with pain.

Enacted in April of this year, Michigan’s medical marijuana act passed with 63 percent support when it was on the ballot. Now the state is starting to sow the seeds of what could be a new opportunity for people looking for treatment other than endless amounts of pills from the pharmacy.

The act, which allows Michigan residents to use medical marijuana, says that the state will not be providing seeds or tips on how to consume the plants. That is where caregivers come in, licensed residents that are allowed to grow it for their patients.

Since April there have been 10,393 applications caregivers or patients, with 5,873 patient registrations and 2,444 caregiver registrations handed out. Over 1,800 people have been denied according to the state Department of Community Health.

Louis Stocking, who is involved with the Kalamazoo Compassion Club, holds meetings to help caregivers and patients to make sure they know what they are doing. The compassion clubs are in several cities throughout the state.

“My dad’s a caregiver. He’s going to be my caregiver,” Stocking said. “You can have up to 5 patients, 12 plants per patient.”

Stocking wants to make it clear that not everyone who is involved with medical marijuana is a pothead.

“My dad doesn’t even smoke, and he’s selling it at half the price. Some people are just doing it to help people. They feel bad for the grandma that has cancer or HIV.”
Caregivers in Michigan are not going to be as public as other states that have passed medical marijuana.

“It’s not like California with the dispensaries, but more in grandma’s closet,” Stocking said.

Still, Stocking said that Michigan has a long way to go before it is what he considers the goal.

“Michigan rushed it, the lawyers didn’t have enough time to look it over,” Stocking said. “Medical marijuana needs to be amended. It’s going to start at the city level next year, with different ballot initiatives in cities like Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Traverse City, Ypsilanti and Ferndale [among others].”

The current law isn’t the clearest on what is and isn’t allowed. A lawyer specializing in medical marijuana might be able to make it clearer for people wanting to try this form of medicine, without fearing of being arrested.

“I teach two hours on the medical marijuana act,” Paul Youngs, a lawyer who teaches at Southfield’s MedGrow Cannabis College, said. “It goes over what the medical marijuana act provides, limitations, gray areas.”

Youngs said that he isn’t worried about what the marijuana act doesn’t cover.

“Gray areas, they are patient friendly, because there is no tendency one way or the other in the law,” Youngs said.

Being a lawyer, Youngs is subject to all kinds of situations he has to try and help caregivers through.

“One of the most often asked questions is ‘can you trade plants with other caregivers?’” Youngs said. “It could be trouble if you do that, it wouldn’t be legal.”

Another question is if the marijuana is allowed to be grown outside, again something that wasn’t covered in the law.

“Some police officers assume it has to be inside; a judge disagreed,” Youngs said. “The provisions are ambiguous. It will end up more in court because it isn’t so cut and dry.”

When coming down to whether or not caregivers and patients should be worried about federal or state government cracking down on them like California, Youngs is uncertain. The most important thing is if residents are breaking both federal and state law, then they are going to get into trouble, according to Youngs.

“It all starts with the cops, nothing goes to court without them making an arrest,” Youngs said. “I keep hearing that it’s going to happen, people are going to get hassled by the cops.”

Joe, a man speaking under the condition of anonymity, is a 49-year-old living in Detroit, Mich. He worked 20 plus years in environmental maintenance, and was willing to talk about his new career as a caregiver.

“I currently have two patients, and am working on two more,” Joe said. “One has fibromyalgia and the other has a chronic pain because of an injury that the doctor did in her neck when he was doing back surgery.”

He said that the doctors put them on vicodin and valium to stop the pain, but the doses are increased the longer they use the pills.

“They prefer to smoke medical marijuana because of the other medicine becoming addicting,” Joe said. He said his patients had to be approved by a doctor, then the patients fill out paperwork that is sent to the state of Michigan.

“I currently have five plants ready to go, being allowed 12 plants per patient and five patients,” Joe said. “Eight ready to go after that and then I have another 30.”
When the 49-year-old lost his job last year he saw this as a chance to start with something new.

“Last year when they said they were going to pass it, I’m out of a job, my career is pretty much done,” Joe said. “I’m not going to be able to find anything with my career.”

“I figured this was going to be like the ground level of Apple computer, within the next five years it’s going to be booming. At the bottom level it’s going to be my new career.”

Joe said that he knows he has to follow the law, but even then things could still be threatened by over anxious police.

“In Madison Heights some caregivers got busted,” Joe said. “They came in took all their plants, all their equipment and the court date came up they both had their cards and it was dismissed. But unfortunately all their plants are gone and they have to start from scratch again, which takes approximately 6 months to get up and running again.”

Joe said that he has heard of other stories where people were selling the pot to anybody.

“I am worried, but make sure your papers are…right at your door,” Joe said. “If they do knock at your door don’t let them in your house until they see the paper work, and not to let them in the house without a warrant.”

The 49-year-old doesn’t consider himself a drug dealer, not even hesitating when asked the question. Instead he says he is trying to help people that really need it.

The federal Drug Enforcement Agency made it clear what they think of medical marijuana.

“Federally, marijuana is still considered a Schedule I drug,” Will Taylor, a special agent in the Chicago division, said. “Which means according to the federal government it doesn’t have any medical necessity.”

He pointed out that the Obama White House and a new attorney general have a different way of looking at the problem, compared to the previous administration.

“Recently Eric Holder, Attorney General, who oversees the Justice Department said it’s not le-gal, but because resources are limited we don’t focus on individual users,” Taylor said.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Dec 10 2009. Filed under Breaking, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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