PANEL CERTIFIES MEDICAL MARIJUANA INITIATIVE FOR NOV. VOTE

Michiganders with chronic or debilitating disease could legally
possess and use marijuana under a proposal on its way to state voters
in November.

A state elections panel Monday certified petitions with 377,975
signatures backing the plan, well over the 304,000 minimum needed to
put the initiative before voters if the Legislature fails to act upon
it within the next 40 days.

Representatives of both House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford
Township, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, said
Monday afternoon that legislative action was unlikely.

"We will be letting the voters decide this one," said Greg Bird, an
aide to Dillon and House Democrats.

Dianne Byrum, a former lawmaker and spokeswoman for The Michigan
Coalition for Compassionate Care, the group which circulated the
petitions, also said she has no expectation medical marijuana will be
taken up by the Legislature.

The initiative would amend Michigan law to allow seriously ill
patients to obtain a doctor's authorization for the cultivation of up
to 12 marijuana plants and possession of up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana.

Lynn Allen, a 51-year-old Williamston resident who contracted HIV and
Hepatitis C from contaminated blood when he was being treated for
hemophilia in the 1970s, said he would like to have the option of
using marijuana as an alternative to the prescription drugs he takes.

"I think marijuana would help with the pain," said Allen, who also
has arthritis. "Right now, I'm forced to take an opiate. Marijuana is
a much more benign kind of drug."

The movement to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes
has spread widely in the last decade. A dozen states now permit it
under some circumstances.

The practice has been most controversial in California, where voters
also authorized the sale of small amounts of marijuana at licensed
co-ops. Those operations have been targeted by U.S. law enforcement
agencies under federal law. Byrum said the Michigan statute is silent
on the question of where the marijuana comes from, and does not
authorize marijuana sales.

"We're just trying to protect the patient from prosecution," she said.

The Michigan Coalition is backed by the national organization,
Marijuana Policy Project, which provided nearly all of the $1.1
million used to organize the campaign in 2007 and collect the
petition signatures.